Wesley Clover Parks has several areas of interest, of which some are: Ian Miller School of Horsemanship, Ottawa Equestrian Tournaments, Sports Fields, Trails, Campground, Farming, and a Forest School. It's difficult to fully review the "parks" - so this review will focus on the Equestrian Park.
The parks have an interesting history - the National Equestrian Park was the first iteration with construction starting in 1974 via a lease of the lands by the City of Ottawa. In 2012, the city gave up the lease. The land use was up in the air for a few years, until a new lease was awarded to Wesley-Clover Foundation - my best guess was in or around 2018. Over the past several years, incremental improvements have been made. Was out there today and it is looking beautiful. The grounds are in great shape, the show rings are beautifully groomed and the cross-country area was gorgeous. Not sure what the riders thought of the course, but from a spectator point of view, I was able to see 80% of the course from my chosen vantage point. (The one draw back to this course is how flat it is - but you can't have everything!)
In addition to the grounds improvements, there is now what seems to be a semi-permanent café for special events with typical horse-show foods (coffee, grilled food - like grilled cheese, pastries) - and another Coffee trailer was also on the grounds (with delicious butter tarts by the way), so I hope this trend keeps up. I was there for a Horse Trial, which tends to be lower key than Hunter Jumper, Stadium Jump and Dressage - I can only imagine that more horse-related vendors show up at the bigger shows.
Very glad to see such great things happening here. read more