Once again, Region XV will host their Firecracker Classic/AHA Region XV Championship Show at the Virginia Horse Center in Lexington, VA, on July 1-5, 2009. Their motto is “Dollars Galore and Much More!”

The competition management at this competition looked at the payout in prize money several years ago and determined only 30% of the exhibitors won prize money. They wanted to distribute monies over more exhibitors so decided they would have to come up with some creative ways to “spread the wealth.” With that in mind, they created a give-a-way drawing with $10,000 in merchandise and gift certificates. Opportunity to win occurs throughout all days of the competition. There is also a Trainer’s Draw; each trainer receives a ticket for every horse that is entered under the trainer’s name. Two tickets are drawn every session with a payout of $25 in the morning, $50 in the afternoon and $100 in the evening. These amounts double on Saturday.

There is also “Firecracker Cash.” Ten lucky names are drawn at random with each receiving $50. “Be fuelish with 15” is another random drawing. Each horse entered receives a chance to win $1,000 to help defray the fuel costs coming to the event. Then there are “Reining Dollars”—$5,000 in matching money is made available for the six regional reining classes with a possible pot of $10,000 or more.

And then, of course, there is the party “up on the hill” watching the Fourth of July fireworks as well as other parties at this show. Once this program was initiated, entries have gone up almost 25%, and this “Regionals” has become the largest of its kind the previous two years.