With the American Saddlebred Horse Association (ASHA) annual meeting of members scheduled for Thursday through Saturday, February 17-19, at the Embassy Suites of Lexington, KY, proxy and voting materials have been mailed to the entire senior membership.

Ballots for election of directors must be returned by members on or before Tuesday, February 1, 2005. The slate of candidates seeking a seat on the Board of Directors includes Victoria Gillenwater, Tim Lockard, Fred K. Sarver, Paul Treiber, Misdee Wrigley and Art Zubrod, and a space for write-in candidates as required by the Association’s bylaws.

Proxy cards are also included so that members who do not plan on attending the meeting can vote on a proposed internal corporate reorganization. According to Fred K. Sarver, Association President, the reorganization is intended to provide a method for controlling expenses while stimulating revenues, by taking full advantage of the opportunities offered by the American Saddlebred Horse Association Foundation’s existing Internal Revenue Status as a public charity.

“This plan has been thought about on and off for a long time,” Sarver said. “Last spring, in meetings of the Planning Committee and with our legal counsel and independent auditor, we learned that we could offer advantages to our members and our organization, and better serve the future of the breed, if we pursued a new corporate structure. So the staff, the Planning Committee and the Board itself began considering it formally with their July meetings, and pursued it aggressively since then. The Board formally endorsed the plan in December, and are also obtaining outside legal and accounting opinions to make sure we’ve touched all the bases properly.”

Sarver added that the membership is invited to attend a detailed discussion of the plan on Friday, February 18, at the Association’s convention. It will be formally considered and voted upon at the Annual Meeting on Saturday, February 19.

All documents related to the election of new directors and the proposed reorganization are available at www.saddlebred.com.