This episode is brought to you by Zoetis.
Tori Bilas handles press and communications for Desert International Horse Park and has her own boutique PR firm.
On the show, Tori casts light on the freelance side of this specialized industry, discussing the growing demand for content creation, social media management, and video production, while also highlighting the underlying challenges, including constant travel and the risk of burnout.
We then chart the transformation of horse parks, focusing on Desert Horse Park and Traverse City. We discuss how these facilities have become prime destinations, the fierce competition between horse shows, and how competitor experience can make all the difference.
In this episode, we discuss:
Before you listen…Zoetis is always by the side of horses and their caregivers with products like Dormosedan Gel®.
Did you know that you can help calm your anxious, excited and fidgety horse for bandaging, body clipping, first-time turnout after stall rest, farrier work, and more?
Speak with your veterinarian to learn more about how this oral sedative prescription may help.
Visit ZoetisEquine.com or follow us on Instagram and Facebook for more information on our expert-informed horse care solutions.
🐴 This episode is brought to you by Pegasus, the first modern event management system that makes it easy to host and run equestrian events. Sign up for early access at www.thepegasus.app.
Be sure to follow Pegasus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and subscribe to The Oxer, the #1 weekly newsletter for global equestrian industry happenings. 🗞️
This episode is brought to you by Zoetis.
Tori Bilas handles press and communications for Desert International Horse Park and has her own boutique PR firm.
On the show, Tori casts light on the freelance side of this specialized industry, discussing the growing demand for content creation, social media management, and video production, while also highlighting the underlying challenges, including constant travel and the risk of burnout.
We then chart the transformation of horse parks, focusing on Desert Horse Park and Traverse City. We discuss how these facilities have become prime destinations, the fierce competition between horse shows, and how competitor experience can make all the difference.
In this episode, we discuss:
Before you listen…Zoetis is always by the side of horses and their caregivers with products like Dormosedan Gel®.
Did you know that you can help calm your anxious, excited and fidgety horse for bandaging, body clipping, first-time turnout after stall rest, farrier work, and more?
Speak with your veterinarian to learn more about how this oral sedative prescription may help.
Visit ZoetisEquine.com or follow us on Instagram and Facebook for more information on our expert-informed horse care solutions.
🐴 This episode is brought to you by Pegasus, the first modern event management system that makes it easy to host and run equestrian events. Sign up for early access at www.thepegasus.app.
Be sure to follow Pegasus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and subscribe to The Oxer, the #1 weekly newsletter for global equestrian industry happenings. 🗞️
They've taken a horse showgrounds. That's been there for ages and a lot of people grew up showing there, but it was really small. They've turned it into a world-class facility that hosts five-star events and continuing to get the message across that that's what's happening there now and what might have been that in the past. It was much smaller and not that many people from across the world in Europe and internationally attended, but that's not the case anymore.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. My name is Noah Levy and I'm the producer of our Pegasus podcast, hosted by our founders Sam Baines and Jen Tankle. On today's episode, we are hosting Tori Billis, who works in press and comms for Desert International Horse Park. Tori's working at a crucial time for Desert, as the park has been gradually emerging into an equestrian winter hotspot for the West Coast. This episode is particularly interesting if you want to learn about what it's like to work in PR and marketing for horse shows. Alright, let's get into it.
Speaker 3:Tori, thank you very much for joining us this morning. For our listeners who don't know who you are, I just want to give them a quick intro about yourself and what you do.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a loaded question. I kind of do a lot but I primarily am kind of a communications consultant and kind of catch all in the equestrian space. I have several different clients, including horse shows, a couple professional organizations, also nonprofits that I help with all of their communications efforts. Also a rider in my free time a little less so now than I used to, but just a lover of all things horses. I think that's kind of guided what I've done for a long time. Also an artist on the side and that kind of stems from horses as well. So everything I do kind of comes back to that love for horses.
Speaker 4:And where are you based and what do you ride?
Speaker 1:I am based in Charlotte, north Carolina. I've grown up there and I've lived in other places, but that's now my home base and I actually ride the jumpers. I haven't always. I started in the hunters and I think my switch into the jumpers is kind of what made me more passionate about the sport and ended up being kind of what has driven what I'm doing now.
Speaker 1:In a way, I got my first and only jumper when I was I guess I was a senior in college, so it was a little later. I'd been doing the hunters and just had average hunters, you know the horses that would pack me around, but I wasn't winning. And it was enough to still enjoy the sport, but I wasn't. I was still naive as to what the highest level of the sport was. And so I got my jumper and started dipping my toe in that world and around that time I just started watching more of my shows, seeing kind of what the world of show jumping really was, and somehow, within it probably was only two or three years just got ramped up in that highest level. You know I was watching all of the five star shows and you know the masters, all of the highest level, and kind of realizing that that would be a really cool world to be a part of, and I knew that it wasn't going to be as a rider. You know I'm showing in the meter 10, maybe meter 20 on a good day and having fun with it, but I was never going to be a pro rider. So I kind of discovered that maybe there was something creative I could get involved with. So I started to piece together.
Speaker 1:Over the next few years I worked for a couple of communications agencies and built my skills, worked with enough people that I just kind of got to know the sport, and it was amazing how quickly those doors open.
Speaker 1:One day I feel like I know no one in the sport and three years later I am interviewing the Clay and Ward right next to him, and the fact that that happens so quickly. I don't think that's a thing that would ever happen in mainstream sports. You know, you think of the people that dream about reporting, live on the sidelines at a football game and how out of reach that is, and the fact that in the equestrian media space your heroes become your peers at a certain point. You're standing right next to them frequently and I think that's been one of the coolest things about this role that I've taken on. You know, I get to kind of fill a lot of different spaces and because of that the connections I make are tenfold. I get to meet so many different people as a result of the different organizations I work with and I'm excited to see, just in the few years I've been a part of this industry, like how much that opens up as I continue to get to know it more.
Speaker 3:You said, when you first got into this you started working for a few agencies like PR firms and then at some point you went out on your own and that's what you're doing now. You have your own PR firm that specializes in the equestrian space.
Speaker 1:Correct. Yeah, I worked for three different PR firms and just to equip me with the basic knowledge of what equestrian PR looks like at its basics, taught me a little bit about writing, photography, videography, and that's allowed me to have my own spin on everything that I do. I think I learned enough different formats, different ways of doing each of those things that now I think what I offer is just a hair more creative than what some of the agencies you know their standard offerings are.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, for those that aren't familiar, because I think most people, especially if you're on LinkedIn, they've seen people that work for PR agencies, etc. Like what does that industry look like? So, if you are working at one of those agencies, what is your responsibilities and what are you trying to achieve essentially?
Speaker 1:I can't really speak for mainstream PR. I know it's probably very different and I have not worked in that space at all. But in the equestrian space it's essentially marketing. These PR firms are hired by clients, be it a horse show, a barn, a rider, a product sometimes it's supplements, things like that. It's to basically take on, become their marketing department and we have all of the contacts in the media space. Because it's a small industry, we have all the contacts generally to be able to help tell their stories. So we do a lot of email marketing for them. We do a lot of social media marketing. It's basically just helping to market the brand.
Speaker 1:Whichever kind of brand it is it depends on. It's going to look very different if it's a rider versus if it's a product. For a person it's a little more. You constantly have new content. If it's a rider that's showing every week and cranking out results every week, we're sharing that. We're letting them know how well this person is doing and helping them to do the thing that they don't have time for they're not very adept with.
Speaker 1:You can kind of tell when certain riders, you can tell when other people are managing their social media, when it looks like something that they wouldn't have time to do. So that's a little bit where a PR firm would step in and then it's just being creative with. You have to really get to know the different brands. Sometimes with product marketing, which I've stepped away from for the most part, it's a little less my forte. But being able to come up with campaigns and sell a product in an interesting way, recognize who they're trying to appeal to and help market at its core, One of those things where if you do hire on an agency, they're there 24, seven.
Speaker 4:Essentially all of your marketing is outsourced to that firm. Or is it one where, if you still want to be involved in some capacity, there's different packages. Is it all or nothing or a little a la carte?
Speaker 1:It is mostly a la carte. I think it can be whatever the client wants. In my experience we have taken on the agencies I worked for. We've taken on clients that still want to do their own social media but will do the rest. Or I've had some that just want me to do their social media and they'll do the rest and we fill in where they have gaps. So if it's their entire marketing efforts feel like a bit of a gap, that's where a PR agency can really step in, or a PR person Sometimes it's just one person behind the agency it really depends on what the company needs and what they want, and sometimes down the road you may take on more or less. It is mostly all a carte, I would say in this industry especially Interesting.
Speaker 3:Right Easy market space, I should say. Are there lots of little PR firms that do this or is there like a few big players in the equestrian market in America? What's the competitive landscape of PR firms for a question?
Speaker 1:That's a good question and I think it is constantly changing right now. I would say probably two or three years ago, right around the time, I was employed by an agency and just getting my feet wet, there were a couple big players and they were groups of, I would say, between five and ten employees, small businesses, but still groups of people. The landscape is changing, though. There are a lot of people who have gone out on their own and are now offering kind of boutique services. However, they I would say a lot of them are very specialized, so people are recognizing what their talent is. So I know a lot of people who've gone out on their own and they really just specialize in content creation for social media use. So they might be photographers and they're following their clients from horseshoe to horseshoe and taking over all of their social media accounts, but that's kind of all they do. They don't really manage sponsorships or email marketing or anything like that. It's really Just following them with a camera then making sure that all that content gets on social media.
Speaker 1:There are people who specialize in just video people that horseshoes or individuals or brands might hire to do video content that then they can use for their purposes and figure out how to market using the video content that they create.
Speaker 1:It's an interesting landscape in that there is a need for all of that in some way or another. Each company and each brand can benefit from bits and pieces of that. They may hire a contractor that Can produce a video, but then they'll use a different agency to then market that video. So that's been a little interesting and I've had people come to me you know I've met a lot of Now that I I still consider myself the younger generation, but I've had an even younger generation Approach me and ask for advice and I kind of tell them that it's a little bit of a freelancer's world right now, and I don't know if that's just because I've gotten very lucky that the right opportunities have presented themselves since I've gotten freelance, but people that have a select set of skills. I think there is a unique opportunity to be able to market that set of skills. You don't have to be good at everything. You can just be really good what you do and still appeal to the right consumer, the right people.
Speaker 3:It makes total sense, right? Why you this? It would fragment the fact that distribution of content through tiktok, instagram, reals, etc. Is becoming the greatest form of marketing that you can do and it's also the cheapest to create, in a sense, because everyone's got iPhones and it's designed to quickly film and upload it, and they've made it super easy. Now, granted, we, like you, have put the effort in to make sure that the stuff that we upload is highly produced and gone through a process.
Speaker 3:As a just point and shoot, if you're going into this as a career, as a profession, by going out on your own the scale, are you in a position which is like you might be able to pick up a few clients quickly and to go follow them around from horse or to horse show, but then you find yourself living this life you didn't set out to expect to live, which is making a little bit of money but not a lot of money, spending your entire time traveling around the country for work and not with your friends and family at home. And Do you find that a lot of people who try and then just like burn out quickly because it's like all this isn't before, when you had the three big firms or the few big firms, you kind of had a team and so you didn't all have to be everywhere at once. So you had a bit more of a professional work life balance. But with this fragmentation makes it easy to get into but might make the lifestyle a lot harder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is definitely true. I went from when I was working for an agency. It was essentially a nine to five and I worked from home. It was a remote position, so I'd be at my desk from nine to five. I was lucky I'd get out to the barn after that. I had a very reliable work schedule. I also was working one of those jobs in the middle of the pandemic, so I was not really traveling. I spent probably a year just at home working that nine to five and it was very steady, very simple lifestyle and that has changed very much.
Speaker 1:I am fortunate in that one. My biggest client is just one event, so I go to one place. It can kind of be, you know, when I leave I set up a little bit of a home base out there and while it's not home I can still make it feel. Make it feel I'm just in one place, I'm not catching a plane all the time, I'm not feeling like I'm exhausting myself from travel. It's a little less of the kind of rat race for me, as it is for a lot of people I work with, and it depends a lot on each person's individual situation, because I see a lot of people in this industry that are their family is on the road with them in some way or another. Maybe they're married to a rider so they're able to then travel to where that rider goes to and they can all be together. Whom is people for them? Whom is not a place, and I think that's a little bit how a lot of professional athletes see it. So the people that end up working in the industry kind of follow suit in a way. They make it work for their lifestyle. But that being said, I have also seen some people burn out. Some people do have to leave the industry. It really is.
Speaker 1:It's a tough one. It's the people I know that have made it well into those careers of constantly traveling, constantly working, the crazy, crazy hours in a week, working weekends and everything. I think family life is a little less important to them. You know, it might be people who they don't have kids and maybe having kids wasn't a lifelong goal of theirs to focus more on their career. As someone who sees myself, I want to have a family eventually. I recognize that having the more steady gigs is going to be a very good thing for me in the future. Bouncing from show to show is going to be a little more challenging, but it's also something that I a little dedicated to making both work and figuring that out, however I can. But it's a very good question because it's everyone has a different approach to it, a different way that they either handle that or maybe don't handle that and sometimes it doesn't work and they have to step away and find something a little more steady.
Speaker 4:I can imagine to. When you're just starting out, you're happy to get any kind of clients and so, before you know it, you could probably get a freelance gig, one in California and Florida and the Midwest and Texas, and so You're doing exactly what you had said, which is you're constantly traveling and you get burnt out. But for you, was it very much intentional when you started out? Were you very particular with the clients that you were going to work with and then what that would entail for your work, life balance or lack of a better term?
Speaker 1:So when I first went out on my own, it was the first two clients that I got were both horse shows and they were circuits that did not overlap. It was the Desert Horse Park circuit in the winter and the Traverse City or show circuit in the summer. So I recognize that I would have two up to five star level horse show events and I could just split my time a little bit. You know, it seemed perfect to me at the time that I'm going to have my off seasons in the spring and the fall and then I'm going to have my busy seasons in the summer and the winter and so far that has worked very well for me, also in the sense that it is. While it's a lot harder, it's possible to do those things from home, if I ever have to. This past weekend being an example, I did have to come home early from the horse show because I had a family wedding to go to and if you have the right people on the ground there that are helping you succeed, you just continue as normal. I mean, it's obviously harder to not be a part of the conversations that are going on there and being present for everything that's going on, but it's possible and I did that a lot Over the summer with Traverse City. I did a couple weeks remotely. So that's also something in the back of my head, knowing that it's a little hard to combine horse show life with regular life and weddings and events like that are going to come up, but it's something that I now see as possible.
Speaker 1:And then on the side, I also was intentional with picking up some clients that are lower in terms of the commitment and in terms of what they pay me, but they are steady social media slash email marketing clients that are never going to require a minute of in-person action. We communicate digitally 100%. They send me content, I post it, we'll have a phone call and get up to date. I'll do all their marketing efforts, but it's not going to ever make me get on a plane and travel anywhere. Luckily, one of them is actually Charlotte based, so if we do have meetings, it's actually very easy to get those done in person. But that's another realm of one of which is my client base does require a good bit of travel and in-person face to face time. But then I also do. I was a little intentional about also filling in the gaps with a little bit of the easier in terms of travel and face time with some of those clients that they do a little less for.
Speaker 3:You're in this fortunate position and people who work in PR and are in this fortunate position, which is that you spend time amongst multiple different clients and with each client, you sit down and you go.
Speaker 3:Okay, what is your problem set? What are you actually trying to achieve? It might be, for example, that there's bad optics because there was a few accidents at your horse park recently. It might be that your problem set is that you're not attracting enough people to register for your competition, so you need to improve your marketing to get more registrations. It might just be that the problem we've got is that people don't travel out here anymore because a lot of people have moved out of the physical area or something. So, because you have had that broad exposure, have you noticed any trends as to what are the common themes that horse show managers are struggling to overcome? Or are they thinking down the future about existential problems for the future they've got to start thinking about, or are they more, at this point, still just really quite focused on just day to day production of content just to make the horse park look good?
Speaker 1:In terms of the conversations that I am a part of, I would say it's more the latter. There might be quite a bit that goes on that there are problems every day when you're running a horse show, but the ones that are more public facing Horse shows recently that I've played a role in marketing for have been mostly I wouldn't say new, but new management, so they are flipping the script a little bit. Desert horse park was purchased in 2019 and people who went in 2018 and then went again in 2023 would not recognize it in any way.
Speaker 1:I mean everything from the way the customers are treated to the way the horse park looks. That was walking into something where we have to market essentially a new horse park. We're not really worrying about the things that happened pre-purchase. It's all looking ahead. There were a couple of rocky seasons there just because ever since they purchased it, they had the natural disaster, they had COVID, they had, unfortunately, a equine virus breakout. So there were a couple of seasons there that we did have to pivot past. A bit of crises, I think for the most part.
Speaker 1:And then Traverse City, a bit the same thing. They've taken a horse showgrounds. That's been there for ages and a lot of people grew up showing there, but it was really small. They've turned it into a world-class facility that hosts five-star events and continuing to get the message across that that's what's happening there now and what might have been that in the past it was much smaller and not that many people from across the world in Europe and internationally attended, but that's not the case anymore. So continuing to kind of get that story across I think has been that's where, as marketers, our focus has been is sharing what's going on now and what's going on in the future in an effort to get people to really see both facilities as international contenders.
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Speaker 4:Is Trevor City also a new acquisition? We've been to the Desert Horse Park. We were there earlier this year.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I will say it was magnificent, coming from the East Coast and just mostly growing up and around and experiencing East Coast horse shows. So then one learn about the West Coast horse shows and then go to the series there and see how much attention to detail that they have on the riders and the spectators and from the food choices and the places to sit. I mean it was just a really great establishment. So we were impressed there. We haven't been to Trevor City yet, but is that a similar premise and would you say it's also a new narrative because of that new ownership, new flux of capital and the completely different mindset of how they're going to make it a world renowned event versus just we put on some horse shows every now and then.
Speaker 1:I would say it's similar. I actually don't know when it was acquired by the current owners. I've known that it's been a summer destination for a while for a lot of top competitors. It hasn't been on my radar, as I have been watching the horse show for that many years, so I think it's only been on my radar since maybe 2018 or so. They had certain things. They moved the American Gold Cup there.
Speaker 1:I think in 2019 was the first year that put it on the map a little bit and then major league show jumping has put it on the map even more, which is also true of Desert Horse Park. So they're a little bit partners in that sense. But the show manager at Traverse City is co-founder of major league show jumping and Desert Horse Park is also a really strong partner there because they host the two weeks of the finals. So they're a little bit linked in that way. They're all kind of allies. Their competition dates don't overlap at all, so they share a customer base. They are friends with one another, so it's all very. They're not competitors in any way, which is nice to be able to work for two more shows that don't see each other as competitors.
Speaker 4:Well, is that also a geographical thing too? It's like they're in completely different areas of the country, so is it one where it would take a little bit closer together? Or would you do start putting on five star events and dishing out significant capital and there are dates when people are putting on their shows. Is that where the competition kind of sets in and people do they stop thinking of themselves as allies and they start thinking of themselves as competitors, or is that line? Yeah, where is that line?
Speaker 1:At its base. I would say the shows that compete with one another are the ones that happen at the same time, because you can't go to both. The idea that a lot of West coasters over the years have chosen to travel all the way to Wellington to be there for the absolute top competition that's the circuit in Florida to go to. So I definitely see. Shows that overlap with Wellington certainly are competitors. People have to make a choice. If they're going to take their horses all the way down to Wellington, they can't also take them somewhere else. There are horses that will find ways to take them to two circuits whether it's half and half or figuring out some way to make both happen Horses that are seen as they're calling the same caliber as one another.
Speaker 1:If you're going to go and show and succeed, you're competing for the same points and prize money, all of the same takeaways as one another and at the same time. If you can't do both, you have to choose one. So I would say that's probably the number one factor, and then competitor experience as well. There are places that are not as horse friendly, not as competitor friendly. So overall, if all else is equal, I would say maybe the competitor experience and the horse experience maybe might put one slightly ahead of the other.
Speaker 3:You made the point that the Traverse City and the Desert Horse Park they're on the West Coast, the fact that they have to compete with Wellington if some of the top riders decide to go down to Wellington for the winter, etc.
Speaker 3:Because they are the big players on the West Coast.
Speaker 3:Have you found that the leadership of these horse shows do actually take the time to think about the West Coast versus the East Coast? The East Coast gets a lot of attention. How we get more people to take the West Coast equestrian scene I don't want to say more seriously because it's very serious, but it's very dominated on the East Coast. The West Coast. We've found in our conversations that whether it's from companies that are trying to sell products to the English rider, they always dispatch the sales rep to the East Coast, especially if they're coming from Europe, not only because it's just across the pond as opposed to they're never going to go across America, but it's just the general consensus that it's worth investing your resources in the East Coast and therefore the West Coast gets a little bit neglected. Do you find in your conversations with horse shows on the West Coast that they are aware of that concept and they do think about it and they're actively trying to figure out how do we get more people and more brands and more companies to invest in the West Coast.
Speaker 4:But to clarify, would Traverse City be considered Midwest or what would you consider in Traverse City?
Speaker 1:Yes, that would be. Midwest. Traverse City is in Michigan, so that would be a little Midwest slash, a little closer. It's more convenient to the East Coasters than it is the West Coasters. However, in the aspect of Desert Horse Park and other West Coast venues, what they are trying to flip the switch on.
Speaker 1:So the people who came into purchase Desert Horse Park in 2019, they are all West Coast horse people. A lot of them are amateur riders who, over the years, they just were all just hyper aware of how they did not have an elite venue and a lot of the horse shows in California are actually municipality owned, they're not privately owned. So, with those budgets getting tighter and tighter, the horse shows work falling into disrepair and they all kind of came together for that purpose. They recognized that this community needs an elite venue and they were. It's four families that were just willing to go all in and make sure that that happened and it's interesting in just four years, the way that they have accomplished that. I actually was just so.
Speaker 1:Cassiore of Eddie won a class while I was out there this past week and a half ago, so I interviewed him and he you know I always ask what do you think it does at the park? That's always one of my go to questions. I love getting to share everything that people say because it's always so positive. And he jumped right into the fact that he is just thrilled that he and his team do not have to travel to the East Coast anymore or to Europe. They're, the sport is there for them now and for someone like him who's been to the Olympics and he trains probably future Olympians.
Speaker 1:He has some incredible young clients that are jumping World Cup qualifiers. One of them went to World Cup finals last year. He's got just this incredible string of students that are jumping at the highest level and they have everything they need at Desert Horse Park. They can compete in FEI, they can jump five stars, they can bring up younger horses and some of the younger horse divisions. It's exactly what those top, top athletes need, and hearing it from someone like him really brought home that they have they've reached that goal of. I mean, obviously there's still a ton of work to do. They would not say they've reached the goal because there's still so much to do, but the sport has arrived on the West Coast because they don't have to travel anymore and they're only I think they're two hours away in San Diego.
Speaker 3:So for them to have all of the highest caliber of show jumping essentially in their backyard has just been transformative for so many West Coasters Do you think this is the point of inflection over the last couple years where the West Coast riding scene really starts to flourish Like do you think the fact that Desert Horse Park has proven that this is possible? Have you been witness to any discussions that this might turn into more horse parks opening up and more money being invested and more professional riders getting behind into really supporting causes to create more professional, standard horse parks on the West Coast?
Speaker 1:I would hope so. I have not really heard any discussion of any new horse parks opening. There's several others that run sockets. The horses out there are generally smaller and there's a lot less FEI competition for the riders that aren't really needing that top level and those ranking class type competitions. They're still enough to go around. I think they have to travel a bit more.
Speaker 1:You have to either commit to Northern California or Southern California. You don't have the same options that you do on the East Coast, and I think Carl Cook has actually touched on this a little bit how the reason that California seems to be on the bit of an island is because you can only go up and down, whereas I can speak to being in North Carolina. I'm an hour away from Trian. I could drive down to Florida and it's really not that far. I could drive up to New York and it's not that far. I could go to Ohio. I could go to Kentucky. Michigan is 14 hours. It's a little farther, but it's still. You can drive that in a day.
Speaker 1:You're just not limited in terms of geographically where you can go, whereas California you can go up and you can go down and that's it. So they just run out of options in terms of where they can travel to, unless you put a horse on a plane, which not many people can do. One of the things that I have noticed really changing, not in terms of the numbers of horse parks, but just in this past year, has been the caliber of rider that has come out to Desert Horse Park in particular, and I think that could be, as you were saying, a little bit of a turning point. For example, gregory Wathalay, actually based at Desert Horse Park this past winter, and I was starstruck when I heard that he was coming and I think everyone who was part of the leadership there that is what they are reaching for.
Speaker 1:And I think Gregory obviously he's rich with contacts back in Europe. I think he told everyone he had a fabulous time and apparently I wasn't there to confirm but apparently Europe was kind of buzzing with everyone who heard how cool it was and we're hoping that that sparked. I mean I think he's coming back. And Conor Swale is another that he for years now has kept a string of horses out at Desert Horse Park and he actually does both circuits. So he doesn't have his horses do both circuits but he'll keep three and four star horses out in the desert and then he'll keep his five star horses in Wellington and he'll basically do two weeks at a time and he'll go back and forth. And that was honestly a big part of how he made it up into the top 10 in the world, because he'd take advantage of all the three and four star ranking classes and Grand Prix and he would come out, he'd win all of them or he'd be top three in all of them and then he'd go back to Wellington and he'd be top three in the five star Grand Prix. And he even said to me. He's like I have no idea why more people aren't doing this. It's, there's fabulous golf and you also get to stay you know, very relevant on both, both coasts and get the ranking points, get the prize money. He just had the perfect string to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:The fact that we have our five star shows in December. That's the time that all the big players come to town and they get to see everything that we have to offer, and then it's a matter of convincing them that it is worth their while to also consider the circuit that we have from January to March and they get to the four star level. We have two weeks of four star, we have three weeks of three star, so quite a bit of FEI action for those top riders who also have five star horses. They also have a string of three and four star horses that could really be the winners every time they come out and that's a bit of a turning point. I think they even said this past year Gregory was actually in the winner circle more often than anyone, I think, but he kept saying how he's winning.
Speaker 1:But it is not. He has to really work for it. You know it's. It's not an easy win for him at all because of the level of competition out there. It gets, it gets tighter every time, every time they run shows. I mean the athletes are really talented, it's really a high level or high quality horses. So even for an athlete like himself, he to say that he has to come out and he has to earn it still. So hopefully I don't know hopefully he'll tell all of his friends how great it is. We'll start to see more Europeans making the trip, because it is far. But I think, in my opinion, it would be, it'd be worth it. You have a lot of space over there. You have incredible weather when it's, you know, snowing, and you can only show indoors in Europe. It's a good time to be out in the sunshine.
Speaker 4:What were some of the points when the Europeans were buzzing about the Desert Horse Park Like? What were some of the points that he was making to get more people to know about it and want to come back?
Speaker 1:I don't know the specifics of kind of what he was telling people, but I think one thing he really liked was what I just touched on how a Desert Horse Park something that even the East Coast horseshoes don't have a lot of is space. So they have a huge property and the horses aren't really limited to just being in a stall or being in a competition ring. You can't. They have like a huge galloping track. They have big open fields for grazing, they have a lot of paddock space and even just walking from the barn to the ring you have these massive walkways. It's not crowded at all. You can really take your horse and get away from the show. You can take a day and not even see a competition ring. The horse can be out of its stall for as long as you want and you don't even have to look at a competition ring. You can take them elsewhere on the property.
Speaker 1:That's something that people come back to a lot and I think that Gregory really enjoyed because when you're up in the winter you're just cramped. You have a lot of indoor shows. If you do get an outdoor show, it's not. There's just not a ton of space. They're a little smaller when it comes, and even Wellington is a little that way.
Speaker 1:I've shown in Wellington quite a bit and my horse misses home, I think, when he goes down to Wellington because you, just you, don't have a ton of space. When we wanted to get out we'd ride the bridal paths, but you're still in the middle of a neighborhood and the barns barely have paddock space. You run out of space quickly to just be a horse. They just feel like show horses all the time. And I think the weather that's something that people just come back to all the time. It's so consistent out there. I mean the winter days they start a little chilly and they end a little chilly, but in the middle of the day in the winter you hit like 75 every day and it's sunny 99% of the time and perfect tense for showing, exactly.
Speaker 1:It's so consistent. You just kind of wake up and you know what's going to happen. And I think for horse people, consistency is such a key thing, you know, for managing horses when you have no idea if it's going to rain, if it's going to be, the weather is something that is usually such a factor, and especially in North Carolina it rains most winter days and we just crave that consistency. That you get out there, that you just know exactly what you can do every single day with your horse to best condition them for the day that they go into the show ring. And it's a lovely little community too.
Speaker 1:It's such a nice little town. You feel like you're on vacation. You're close to the beach. You know it's just over the mountains to get to San Diego and LA and it's such a nice little. You know the town of La Quinta is so pleasant and pretty. There's a lot of good restaurants. It's kind of a cool place that once the show day ends there's fun stuff to go do and there's a lot of golf for any of the riders that also enjoy golfing. I know they do that every Monday.
Speaker 4:If you're not a rider but you're attached to a rider in some capacity. It's really a perfect town to mecca to be able to accommodate something for everybody.
Speaker 3:So yeah, we also. When we were down there earlier this year, we just found the grounds of the actual horse park to just be really lovely. Yes, I mean, it is a desert environment, right, that's why it's called the desert horse park. Even the quality of the food vendors, the quality of, like, the alcohol and coffee vendors and everything, it was all very California in the sense of a health focused food.
Speaker 3:Really fresh, healthy, zesty meals. We actually found ourselves being like oh, we want to get lunch here. We don't want to try and find some time to sneak into town to go get lunch at a proper restaurant, because all the food and drink available on property was beautiful.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean growing up in Florida. So I competed in eventing and I grew up in Florida at a time where there really weren't that many options. I left Florida in 2016,. Wek didn't exist or if it did, it was just being built and I wasn't competing at that time and wef wasn't really on a radar and I know Tarnova's a new place and there were just there's just so many more venues and options now, but there really weren't then. And so growing up it was pretty much you compete and then there's a food truck that would have crepes and so we'd all look forward to like the crepes, but that was basically it and it was only open from a certain period of time.
Speaker 4:So, fast forwarding to where we are today and just seeing how horse shows are, thinking so much more of putting on a really great experience for everybody and what? Not only for the riders and for the grooms and trainers, but for people that are interested in the sport to be able to come out for the day, have a very comfortable seating, have a lovely lunch. I like seeing that transformation and being able to see Desert Horse Park really be one of the frontiers of that movement. So I think, when other people that aren't necessarily riders can come and see the sport, want to be involved in some capacity, have a lovely day, whereas back in the day, at least, where I was competing and these are big parks where I was competing at but back in the day you would just want to come and see your kid or partner or friend ride and then you'd get the hell out of there because there wasn't really any comfortable place to hang around and watch.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So, but yeah, just to mirror your point.
Speaker 3:Getting back to the business side of things, when you're looking for sponsors and stuff for the horse show etc. Have you noticed over the last five years or so whether there's been any change in the sort of businesses that are taking an interest in sponsoring or vendering at equestrian competitions?
Speaker 1:That is not entirely my realm. We have a separate sponsorship person who handles someone else who does vendors as well. While I'm fully aware of all of the sponsors that do come on board, I'm not really sure exactly like in terms of the acquisition or the interest level. I guess the equestrian space with sponsorship is it's heavy on investment groups. There's always different advisory groups and investment groups that come in and that seems to align well.
Speaker 1:We're always trying to you know weft with their net jets partnership. We're always trying to come up with their luxury brands. I think that that we want to really closely associate ourselves with and I think that's a very mutually beneficial type of partnership when it's a really luxury brand. While we're trying to elevate the level of our horse park, I think associating with really luxury brands is a really good strategy there. And then, similarly, for a brand like that to come in and have access to all of the customers. It's a very elite group of people. If you have money to horse show, you have money to spend on some luxury products. So I think there's a lot of strategy there to try to get some luxury brands in.
Speaker 1:We also are trying to partner with a lot of the local communities. Palm Springs, which is a little farther away it's about half an hour away from the horse park but the greater Palm Springs area encompasses La Quinta and Indian Wells and all of the little communities around there that also have other major events. You know, there's a big tennis tournament in Indian Wells. There's a really big golf tournament, the I think it's the AMX golf tournament. That's only like I want to say. It's like two miles away from the horse park it's at PGA West. We're trying to learn from those events a little bit and see the sponsors that they bring in and the types of people that attend those events. It's interesting because of how much overlap there is with sports like tennis and golf.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'd imagine there'd be a lot of crossover opportunities. So if you're already going to be a sponsor of one of these PGA tournaments I know nothing about golf, but if it's just on the street now you have this other opportunity with another demographic that is very inclined to buy your products because it's just similar type of class then yeah, I would imagine that that would be a no brainer for them. So that's something that's actively going on right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think in terms of like leveraging the local communities really becoming a part of the greater Palm Springs area, that's a big goal of theirs. Right now they're a little less known just because it is a little far out, it's not exactly in a city, mainly because of how much space they need. Getting closer with those individual communities, I think, is a big goal of theirs.
Speaker 3:Out of intros. Who are the main demographics at the horse park? Is the majority of the people who compete? Do they come from Southern California Majoratively, and is a majority of the riders out of Los Angeles, or is it a pretty equal spread across the entire state?
Speaker 1:I actually don't know the exact numbers there. There are definitely a lot of Los Angeles competitors, but they pull from all over the state. Everyone kind of sees these circuits as the main event to go to, no matter where in California they're from. We also get a lot of Oregon and Washington because they don't really have many options, especially there. For a minute, when the Canadian border was closed, they couldn't go to Thunderbird or Spruce Meadows. They had to travel south. For a lot of them that kind of stuck. They realized that they could come down to Desert Horse Park and actually a lot of Canadians come as well because it's so cold up there it's perfectly timed for them.
Speaker 1:in the winter they get to play snowbird and come down. So we do cater to a lot of Canadians. We get a lot of Texas competitors, actually ones that choose to come west instead of east, and then from there it's a little bit outweighs of some Colorado. It really is just a lot of the western side of the United States.
Speaker 3:Right, okay, the question you made earlier. We were talking about being in PR in the equestrian space and the idea that it is getting more fragmented and people are specializing, but that comes at a cost, which is that you lose a work life balance in some sense In your mind. If you could like have a magic wand and you could waver and create a reality, do you think it's possible in the question industry to build a PR firm that can scale? Another point to add to that just keep in mind in the answer in that question is how do these shows, these professional writers, et cetera, how are they actually hiring PR firms? What's that hiring process like? And therefore, maybe it isn't possible to really scale a company, because it's just not how these relationships end up coming to be, et cetera.
Speaker 1:That's a burning question on my mind right now too.
Speaker 1:It's something I have certainly been thinking about because it is more than a one person job.
Speaker 1:What I'm doing right now especially the onsite responsibilities and I have brought in some incredible team members that are helping me with a lot of the photo and video efforts but it's all still it's somewhat piecing together different freelance offerings.
Speaker 1:So far that has been what's worked for me, but I've been this pivotal point where I do need to figure out how to scale a little bit and if the option is better to continue doing what I'm doing, where I piece together freelance offerings to cover all the different pieces that I need, or if this is something bigger, if it could even be something bigger, because the reason why I left the agency world is that you give all your time and more, because it is still the demanding nature of the equestrian world, where you're working weekends, you're working well into the night, there's kind of no respect for your natural work hours versus just. This is the time that things happen, and I'm fine with that. I've never been someone who's glued to the nine to five but at the same time, you're not really paid in the way that you should be to have it take over all your time.
Speaker 3:And freelancers who aren't fully involved in the equestrian industry might be a bit shocked by that as well.
Speaker 4:Interesting. Well, because, would you ever? I mean, this could be a loaded question and you don't have. If you don't know yet, it's totally fine too. But have you ever thought about then creating your own type of agency, so, as you do scale, as you do have more consistent? Right now it's circuit, so there's pockets of time all across the country, but as that becomes more consistent, and then there's shows every weekend and building up the team, where you've got the content creators who can go and capture the footage, then you've got the email marketers and et cetera. But just instead of having to hire freelancers here and there for different parts of the shows that are taking place all over the country, but just kind of bringing that all in internally, to make it your own agency.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've certainly thought about that. It would take a lot of work to figure out all of the different parts and pieces to really make sure that it's profitable and it makes sense for everyone who would be involved. One of the nice things about where I've gotten is I touched on kind of at the beginning the fact that it's opened up my professional network in so many ways. There's so many people that have actually even come to me for advice and people that are just trying to break in and find their spot. I think it would be really easy to find people who would have an interest in working in this space. The more challenging part would be figuring out ways to maintain that and making sure that it's profitable and it makes sense for everyone. Because of the difficult nature of it, I don't want to have to ask someone to be away from their family for 10 weeks at a time. It's such a challenging environment that it just has to make sense in every way. The nice thing is that there are so many. There's a lot of young people who have yet to figure out what their path is, just like me five years ago, very willing to just be on the road 24-7.
Speaker 1:The first few years of my career actually started at ESPN and was. I think I was in a different city every week and spent one night at home in my own bed. That was awesome at that time. It's so fun to just be in it and just do everything you possibly can. Once you get a little older, you realize that maybe that's still for you but maybe it's not Figuring out the perfect rhythm with the right group of people so that everything would. You have the talent, you figure out a way to retain that talent and make sure that everyone's happy in doing what they want to be doing. Spending enough time at home, making enough that it's worth their while. I think those are all the pieces that I do not have an answer to yet, that I would need to figure out, but it's definitely not outside of the realm of possibility.
Speaker 4:Even just for people that are interested to know that that's even possible, because we hear this a lot, which is people want to work in the equestrian industry but they don't necessarily want to open up a barn and they don't necessarily want to become a professional rider or a trainer. For a lot of people it's like well, how can I do a quote unquote corporate job in the equestrian world, being able to at least understand that this type of possibility is an option and you can go and travel and you can go and interview the clean ward and live a pretty cool life in the equestrian industry, but not necessarily have to do mucking stalls and tacking up horses. You can probably do a little bit of that too. I mean, there's tons of freelance opportunities, but I think knowing that this type of career is possible is just getting the word out.
Speaker 3:Absolutely All right. Well, thank you very much for joining us today. Really appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 4:Oh, thank you so much. This was really fun. And so where can people connect with you? And one quick question is what would your ideal client be? Are you looking for riders, other shows, brands? Who's your ideal client?
Speaker 1:The elite horse show. The high level horse show is my ideal client, so I'm in a way already catering to my ideal client, but continuing to build that.
Speaker 1:So I aspire to one day be working the Grand Slam. I want to work in Auken one day. I'd love to do the world championships in the Olympics. I'm not sure if that's within reach, however, it's something that I think that would be. My ideal situation is, you know, I have the steady circuits that fill the large gaps of time and then filling them in eventually with those one-off shows that happen, you know, either once a year, once every four years, and filling the rest of my year with the very top level of sport.
Speaker 4:Okay, and so where can people connect with you If they do want to work with you or just follow your work and just reach out?
Speaker 1:On LinkedIn I'm Victoria Billis. That's my full name, but I don't go by Victoria anywhere else. On Instagram I'm just Tori Billis. First, last name, I'm just Tori B-I-L-A-S. And then also I'm actually in the process of kind of revamping my whole website offerings. But I have a current art website that there is a contact form on that, just ToriBillisartcom, and people can contact me regarding anything. It doesn't have to be an art inquiry, but that's another way to get in touch with me.
Speaker 3:Fantastic. Well, thank you very much, and we'll speak to you soon, no doubt. We'll probably see you out at the horse park sometime soon.
Speaker 4:Do you have the?
Speaker 1:desert. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, well, you guys should come out. That would be awesome.
Speaker 3:Thank you Bye.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening to the latest episode of the Pegasus podcast. As you heard from our mid-roll, we are also releasing an equestrian event management software platform. Now it's easier than ever to host, sign up and sponsor for any equestrian event in the world, thanks to all the features of the Pegasus app. To sign up, go to our homepage at wwwthepegasusapp. See you next time.