Hello Cutters,

By the time you read this, the ICHA Futurity & Aged Event will be just days away from starting. We are very excited about the show this year and what Idaho has to offer the cutters that will be competing here!

Our Futurity Coordinator, Sue Marostica, has worked very hard to put together a great show with many fun, evening events. You won’t want to miss the Welcome to Idaho Party on Thursday, 9/2; the Bridleless Calcutta & Cutting Event on Friday, 9/3; the Welcome Home Party on Saturday, 9/4; and the Open Futurity Finals on Sunday, 9/4. All of this, in addition to great cutting action during the days! When you see Sue at the show, please tell her Thank You for all of her efforts.

Congratulations to all of you who won awards in the UCHA Saddle Series this year!
Please be sure to mark your calendars for the BVCHA Aged Event & 3-day Weekend Show October 8th – 10th. It will be held at Heritage Park Equine Center in Caldwell, Idaho. It will be the final show from which earnings will be counted toward the 2010 Idaho Champion Series standings. We have some very nice awards planned and will be presenting those early in 2011.

Safe travels to each of you during the Aged Event season & I look forward to seeing you soon.

Preston Skaar
ICHA President

Hello Cutters,

It’s hard to believe that it is already August and aged event season. Time sure does fly.

ICHA Futurity & Aged Event entries are now open! Go to http://www.idahocha.com/futurity-aged/ for the Show Schedule, Entry Forms and all of the information about the show. We are very excited about the 1,000 head of Mexican steers that will be used for the futurity horses. As always, we have many fun evening events planned that will be going on in addition to the cutting. We are thrilled to be hosting the 3rd Annual ICHA Bridleless Cutting- it will be by entry this year with a maximum of 15 horses. You won’t want to miss it!

Be sure to mark your calendars for the remaining Summer 2010 Idaho Champion Series shows: Oakley, UT August 5 – 7 and Henry’s Lake, ID August 26 - 29. Both of these shows are ICHA-Approved and earnings from each of them will be counted toward the 2010 Idaho Champion Series standings.

Safe travels during the aged event season & I look forward to seeing each of you soon,

Preston Skaar
ICHA President

Happy 4th of July!

I would like to personally thank each of you who attended Area 3 NCHA Weekend hosted by ICHA, held at Skaar Feedlot in Lewisville, Idaho last month. We had a great show (in spite of a “little” wind) and we truly appreciate everyone’s support of the show!
A big thank you goes out to each and every contestant, as well as a wonderful show staff that worked so diligently to put on a fantastic show—Todd Williamson, Kathryn Webb, Kent & Sarah Skaar, Skaar Feedlot, Hitchiker Productions and Scootemnshootem Photography. A special thank you goes out to Angela Larson & Shilo Inn Suites Hotel of Idaho Falls for their generous sponsorship and great contestant room rate; Brian Anderson and Scott Martin for doing such a great job on our clinic; and Denise Shewmaker for all of her help! Thanks too to the “cookie fairies” for adding some extra fun to the show!

ICHA has added an additional show to our Idaho Champion Series Show Schedule. We are very excited about this newly-approved show, which will be held July 24-25 in Whitehall, Montana. Information about this show can be found in this issue of Horse Sports, on our website www.idahocha.com and on the MontanaCHA website at www.montanacha.com

The 2010 ICHA Futurity & Aged Event will be held September 1-7 in Nampa, ID. Entries open July 1st so check out our website www.idahocha.com for all of the show information. We have a lot of fun things planned, and we hope to see many of you there with your aged event horses!

Safe travels and a happy 4th of July to each of you,

Preston Skaar
ICHA President

Hello Cutters,

I would like to send out a big THANK YOU to everyone who “Rode For Idaho” at Western Nationals in Ogden! Congratulations to each of you that qualified to show there, and also to those of you who were finalists! With everyone’s help, ICHA came home with 5th place in the AQHA/NCHA Affiliate Challenge!

We are excited about NCHA Weekend show being held at Skaar Feedlot in Lewisville, Idaho on Friday & Saturday, June 4th – 5th. I hope to see many of you there!

Be sure to also mark your calendars for the Winnemucca Summer Cutting (Friday, July 2nd through Sunday, July 4th) in Winnemucca, Nevada. This show is ICHA-approved and is part of the 2010 Idaho Champion Series.

I would like to welcome Ryan Hutchinson as the new ICHA Youth Scholarship Coordinator! Ryan is excited about this opportunity to assist with our youth program and we are glad to have him as part of the ICHA team.

The 2010 ICHA Futurity & Aged Event will be held September 1-7, 2010 at the Idaho Horse Park in Nampa, Idaho. There will be $84,000 added, and we are making plans for it to be a really great show.

I hope now that summer seems to finally be here, that it has found each of you well. I wish you all safe travels and look forward to seeing each of you down the road somewhere soon.

Preston Skaar
ICHA President

Hello All,
Happy Easter to each of you!

Our 1st Annual ICHA Spring Aged Event was a huge success, and we would like to say Thank You to all of those who supported it. We heard a lot of good feedback about the change in structure of having three separate shows with the total added money divided equally between them. The total payout of the three-day aged event was over $60,000!

I would like to say Thank You to our Spring Aged Event sponsors- Big Iron Ranch & Nurse N Cat, Figge Farms, Little Creek Ranch, Riverbend Ranch and Commercial Tire. We appreciate their generous support of our show!

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the wonderful show staff that worked so diligently to put on a great show—John & Lennie Uhrig, Kathryn Webb, Cathy Carpenter, Sue Marostica, Corey Fagen, Darcy Skaar, Hitchiker Productions and Scootemnshootem Photography. A special thank you goes out to our judges- Todd Bimat, Dave Costello and Andy Adams. As always, the Idaho Horse Park staff (Rod, Gary, Pat, Sally, Marty and their crew) did a wonderful job for us at a great facility!

ICHA is proud to be the host of NCHA Weekend this year. The show will be held on Friday & Saturday, June 4th -5th at Skaar Feedlot in Lewisville, Idaho. We will be hosting a Cutting Clinic presented by Brian Anderson & Scott Martin the day prior to the show (Thursday, June 3rd). The cost of the clinic will be $200 per person (maximum of 20 participants) and will include lunch. To register for the clinic, contact Darcy Skaar at (208) 709-3544 or darcy@idahocha.com

The ICHA is in need of a Youth Scholarship Coordinator. If you are interested in helping us with this important position, please contact me at (208) 709-3543.

Last but not least, Good Luck to each of you that will be competing at Western Nationals later this month!

Preston Skaar
ICHA President

Hello All,

As we approach spring, I hope that it finds each of you well!  We are very excited about our 1^st Annual ICHA Spring Aged Event, which will be held March 17^th, 18^th and 19^th at the Idaho Horse Park in Nampa, Idaho.  We will be having three separate Aged Event shows- one each day- with $7,000 Added in Each Show ($2,000 in 5/6 Open & Derby Open; $1,000 in 5/6 Non-Pro & Derby Non-Pro; and $500 in the Uncola Open & Uncola Non-Pro)!  .  Each day will be a new day, with a clean slate to start from on a fresh playing field, and lots of money to be won.  We are excited about this change in structure and hope to see many of you there to join us.

In conjunction with the Spring Aged Event, we will be having our ICHA Spring Weekend Show on March 20^th and 21^st.  It will be 2 shows over 2 days with $3,000 Added in each show.  We will also be having Youth Scholarship Cuttings both days.  It has been approved by BoiseValleyCHA and UtahCHA and we are glad to have their support!

We are excited to present our 2009 Idaho Champion Series Awards on Thursday, March 18^th during our “Welcome To Idaho” Party, which will be held from 5:30-8:30pm in the beautiful new concessions area of the Idaho Horse Park Sports Arena.  The awards presentation will begin at 7:30pm.  Plan to join us for an evening filled with great friends, good, wine and entertainment!

Plans are underway for the 2010 ICHA Futurity & Aged Event, which will be held September 1-8 at the Idaho Horse Park in Nampa, Idaho.  Brian Anderson and myself will be the co-chairmen again this year for this event.  Diehl Hiner, Bob Hulden, Scott Martin and Dan Roman have enthusiastically accepted positions on our Futurity Committee again for this year and we are very glad to have each of them!  We will have lots of great cattle to cut in the show pen during the day, along with some great events planned for the evenings during the show.  This year’s event promises to be one of our best shows yet!  We hope to see you there.

 See you all in Nampa,

Preston Skaar

ICHA President

Hello Cutters,

The weekend show season is off and running. I hope that many of you were able to attend the UCHA show in Hurricane, Utah and enjoy a few days of warmer weather! If you weren’t able to attend the Hurricane show, or you are looking for another opportunity to head to warmer country, I would encourage you to head to Las Vegas for the ICHA-approved weekend show February 19-22 at the South Point Equestrian Center.

Our Annual ICHA General Membership Meeting held in January went very well. A big thanks to Sandy Figge for providing us with lunch and a beautiful place to meet. I would like to personally thank each of the ICHA members who attended for coming. We got many things accomplished and many good decisions made.

We are excited about the 2010 ICHA show schedule!

Once again this year, the ICHA will be hosting the *Idaho Champion Series*. We have two ICHA-produced shows planned as part of this series. We also have many other ICHA-approved shows (held in Idaho, Utah and Nevada) that will also be part of our series. We are very excited about the opportunity that this series provides to you as cutters to compete in many locations and in different year-end awards programs! Please look for the detailed 2010 Idaho Champion Series Tentative Show Schedule in this issue of Horse Sports.

We will present year-end awards for the 2010 Idaho Champion Series to the top 4 places in each class. Darcy Skaar and Sue Marostica will once again be heading up our awards committee this year. If there is something that you would like to see given as an award, please let one of them know.

We are very excited about our 2010 ICHA Spring Aged Event & Weekend Show, which will be held Wednesday – Sunday, March 17th – 21st, at the Idaho Horse Park in Nampa, Idaho. The Aged Event will be held the first three days. There will be $2,000 Added per day in the Derby Open Derby, and in the 5/6 Open. There will be $1,000 Added per day in the Derby Non-Pro, and in the 5/6 Non-Pro. Each day is a new day on a brand new playing field! A 2-day Weekend Show will follow the Aged Event, and is approved by both Utah CHA and Boise Valley CHA. There will be Youth Scholarship Cuttings both days. It should be a fun show!

The 2009 Idaho Champion Series Awards will be presented on Thursday, March 18th at 7:30 pm. Please plan to come early and join us for our “Welcome To Idaho Party”, which will start at 5:30pm that evening. There will be lots of great food, wine and entertainment, along with the presentation of our fantastic awards. I hope to see each of you who won awards in this series last year there!

Last but not least, ICHA has been selected to host 2010 NCHA Weekend. We will be having the show in Lewisville, Idaho at Skaar Feedlot on Friday & Saturday, June 4-5. I would like to extend a personal invitation to each and every one of you to come enjoy a great weekend of cutting with us!

It’s going to be a great year!

Preston Skaar
ICHA President

Happy New Year!

I hope that each of you had a wonderful holiday season!

As we begin 2010, I would like to extend a personal invitation to each of you to join us at our Annual ICHA General Membership Meeting on Saturday, January 9th at 1pm at Figge Farms Barn in Bellevue, Idaho.

ICHA has once again approved the Utah CHA show in Hurricane, Utah, which is scheduled for Friday & Saturday, January 29-30, 2010. It is always a nice show to attend to get a little break from the cold and I hope to see many of you there.

We are very excited about our 2010 ICHA Spring Aged Event and Weekend Show, which will be held March 17th – 21st at the Idaho Horse Park in Nampa, Idaho. Watch our website and the February issue of Horse Sports for details!

Last but certainly not least… ICHA has been chosen to host 2010 NCHA Weekend, June 4th-6th, 2010 and we are very excited and honored to do that! We are in the process of finalizing the location and details of that show, so be watching for that information soon.

We are excited to begin the 2010 season. Please feel free to contact me with any ideas, questions or concerns. You, the ICHA membership, are what makes this organization successful!

See you in Hurricane,

Preston Skaar
ICHA President