A Los Angeles City Council Ad Hoc Committee on the Olympic and Paralympic Games, meeting for the first time since June 2024, approved by a 5-0 vote March 26 to proceed with requested venue changes from the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games organizing committee. Relocation of all equestrian events are headed to Galway Downs in Temecula, pending one final approval step in April.
The 82-minute hearing, chaired by City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, included a 20-minute presentation by LA28 chief executive Reynold Hoover and chief operating officer John Harper. The organizing committee requested and received approval of “material relocations” of sports that had been scheduled in venues inside the City of Los Angeles during the bid phase in 2017, but are now planned to be elsewhere.
Holding equestrian competition at Galway Downs, a hub of Southern California equestrian activity for a variety of disciplines and levels, was formally proposed in June 2024 in response to direction from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that future Olympic Games use existing venues and — for equestrian competition — hold all sports in one place. The directive contrasts the 2021 equestrian arrangement at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, where cross-country was staged at a remote site.
In its original 2017 plans for the Games, the LA28 Planning Committee assigned equestrian and para-equestrian to the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area in Encino, which does not currently have equestrian facilities. In contrast, the 240-acre Galway Downs venue already has a cross-country course built through the advanced level, and it hosts dressage, hunter/jumper and eventing competitions as well as other horse-related activities.
In published reports, International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) president Ingmar De Vos said March 31 that he expects the IOC to make a final decision of the equestrian venue at its executive boarding meeting April 9.
“Hopefully, by then the master plan, the venue master plan, will be finalized, and we will know where we will go,” Mr. De Vos said at the two-day FEI sports forum held March 31-April in Lausanne, Switz. “We are in permanent contact with the Los Angeles organizing committee about this — everything’s going in the right direction, but we are under a non-disclosure agreement so we cannot say anything.”
When asked for additional details about the L.A. venue, Mr. De Vos said the venue choice has not been finalized yet.
“The organizing committee is looking at a lot of different aspects, such as the climate such as the costs,” he said.
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