Sinister Dust Cloud Settles Over Ocala After Department of Horse Show Efficiency (DOHSE) Fires Ring Crew

OCALA, FLORIDA—By midday, the dust cloud had reached above the Live oak tree line, and could be seen for miles along US-27N.

The strange mass prompted immediate concern from the local community, with several drivers pulling off to the side of the road to observe it. Even the local police department was called in to investigate the phenomenon taking place over the Ocala Sun Series Show Grounds.

“I’d never seen anything like it,” said horse show participant, Ella Patterson, adding that the plume first seemed to form over Jumper 3, where she was competing, before moving on to cover the entire show grounds. “I couldn’t breathe, my eyes were watering, my horse was snorting and choking.

“All of the competitors in the warm-up ring just stopped what we were doing and grabbed our horses and ran to take cover in the barns.”

Patterson said she was even more shocked when she eventually learned the reason behind the giant dust plume was the management of the horse show venue, itself.

For the last three circuit weeks, the Sun Series’ Department of Horse Show Efficiency (DOHSE) has been steadily making cuts to the jump and ring crews in a measure it’s referred to as “unglamorous cost cutting.”

Show participants gradually noticed the subtle changes, but it wasn’t until this weekend that panic truly set in.

“After the first round of jump-crew firings, they didn’t have enough people to decorate the hunter rings for the professional divisions, so all the courses had no fill, and no boxes. Everything looked sparse, and frankly, pretty ratchet,” said Carter Williams, a Tampa-based trainer and ‘R’ judge.

“Then, they asked every member of the jump crew and grounds staff to report a list of “seven accomplishments” they’d made to the Sun Series that week. And, of course, some of those guys could only come up with one or two things—they kept the grounds looking neat, they raked the rings, they reset jumps. Super important roles, to be sure, but that wasn’t good enough for DOHSE,” Williams continued.

“In recent weeks, we’d started to realize there was trash on the show grounds: old Pepsi cups, candy wrappers, and so much manure everywhere. No one was cleaning it up. Then, there weren’t any guys resetting jumps in the hunter rings. Someone would pull a rail, and we’d all just be standing there, looking at each other, until one of the trainers or moms would hop over the fence and fix it.

“One particular day, no one had adjusted the height of the jumps, so we had a 2’6” Children’s Pony on a course set for the 3’6” Amateur-Owners. He crashed through the first jump, and the pony scared himself so bad, he bolted out of the ring. His poor kid was hanging on like a petrified spider monkey.”

The final straw occurred when DOHSE came for the arena drag/water team.

“I was like, what the hell are they doing? We can’t replace those guys, that takes a lot of specialized training!” Williams explained. “The rings were Sahara Desert-dry and at least three horses pulled up lame with bone bruises and soft tissue injuries.

“A lot of barns scratched, but some weren’t about to give up the points they needed. So by Friday of this week, the rings were starting to give off this ominous, dusty haze. Everyone was pulling their old Covid masks out of retirement and walking around in thick sunglasses, just trying to protect their eyes and lungs.”

Then, on Saturday, the dust cloud arrived in force.

“People were yelling and loading up their trailers—horses were screaming in fear,” Williams recounted. “It was mayhem.”

A representative for the municipality of Ocala said the particulate system was being “closely monitored” by city officials and whatever currently jobless, environmental scientists they could get to return their phone calls. At present, the city’s website recommends wearing a mask and staying indoors, if at all possible. Those required to go outside in Ocala, it says, should proceed with “extreme caution.”

The Ocala Sun Series has canceled all of its classes for the next two weeks, calling the chance of reopening for the remainder of the winter circuit “unclear.” At press time, DOHSE had not responded to multiple requests for comment.

Hector Torres, a 20-year veteran of horse show ring crews in central Florida, said he was fired on the spot on Monday for not replying to the DOHSE’s “seven accomplishments” request in a “timely manner.”

“I operate the water truck,” Torres said. “I didn’t have a list seven accomplishments to send. I just had one, very important one: I kept the rings watered.”

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