The New Year always seems to start off with a bang for me and for the last several years not in a good way. As I watched Snooki (yes, that Snooki) being lowered to the Seaside Heights Boardwalk I decided that this year was going to be different as there are many good things happening and one of those good things is Five Star Tack.
Never content to sit still, we have a number of new things coming up in the next few months. The biggest shift will be in our website presence. As we grow our reach into more tack stores the inevitable conflict of interest between selling to both brick and mortar stores and selling direct to customers becomes an issue and a constraining one at that. Starting February, after the AETA winter trade show, Five Star will be debuting a dealer only website featuring our hunter bridles with matching strap goods plus our new dressage bridle, a new moderately priced line of bridles and our new girth and halter!
Speaking of girths and halters, I have seen the samples of these and they are nothing short of gorgeous! They incorporate Five Star's celtic cross and elastic colors and are totally luxe. I am confident they will be a big hit with the tack stores. These items along with our hunter bridles will be available only through tack stores and hence will no longer be listed on the Five Star Tack website.
That leaves me to concentrate on developing the eventing and jumper side of the business on the current Five Star Tack website which I enjoy because it allows me to be more creative with the design process. Our Chelsea bridle will have a new figure eight design, the Ascot will have an integrated crown option and we will have a new version of our old Magnolia bridle that will have a narrower noseband and for those dressage purists all black stitching! There is also a new rein that we hope is popular with eventing riders for cross country as well as a leather breastcollar and hunting breastplate.
We are committed to recognizing the amateur rider and will be continuing our sponsorship of the USEA's Training Level 3 Day Series. We will also be targeting those eventing competitions that have a large amateur attendance for sponsorship as well. Going forward though, Five Star Tack, has to be more selective in sponsorship of riders and competitions. It is a great concept to try to help out any time a sponsorship opportunity presents itself but in the end it is just not realistic nor does it make good business sense. It's nice to be nice but it's not nice when you are broke in the end!
That said, there is one opportunity I stumbled upon just recently that I think has some real importance. Five Star Tack made a donation of thirty five bridles to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and CANTER USA to be used in their retraining programs of retiring thoroughbred racehorses. There is quite a great need for tack for these horses and I imagine with similar organizations working to rescue, retrain and find homes for various horses; more than I thought. In order to make a greater impact Five Star is looking into developing a program to accept donations of used bridles and strap goods to then be sent to an organization that is in need. By organization I mean a registered charity as I made that mistake once this year and I don't think the money went where it was supposed to go! Georgina Bloomberg does this with The Rider's Closet, an organization she established to accept used riding clothes that are then provided to riders who can't afford to buy show clothes. We are just at the idea point right now so if anyone has any suggestions I am open to them.
It is great to look back at 2010 and the many fun times I had at all the competitions, especially Burghley, but it's even greater to be able to look forward to the positive things that are out there on the horizon. Let's get this party started!
p.s. here are two links to articles about the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and one of the facilities that is receiving Five Star bridles.
http://www.trfinc.org/From-Rags-To-Riches-c109.html
http://www.trfinc.org/c15/Center-Brook-Horses-Start-School-c93.html
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