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On Saturday, the Osceola County Cattlemen’s Association hosted the first public event at the Silver Spurs Riding Club’s new arena, the club’s future plans to connect with its past.
For now, the new facility – dubbed the Kenansville arena for lack of a more official name – will serve as a practice arena for the Silver Spurs, and occasionally be used for smaller organizations like the Cattlemen’s Association, Clay Tyson, last year’s Silver Spurs Big Boss, said. “It’s mostly for our own use right now. It means we can continue to do what we’ve done over the years and that is: Raise our own stock for our rodeo,” Tyson said. “We can watch the young stock get ready for the big show.” The Silver Spurs Club – the only nonprofit organization sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association to own and work its own bucking stock – bought property for the new Kenansville Arena in 2002, soon after selling the Osceola Heritage Park site to the county, Tyson said. The nearly 1,450 acres around the arena sit along the west side of Florida’s Turnpike. “It’s really at the beginning stages,” Wendi Jeannin, spokeswoman for the Silver Spurs, said. “The club has not sat down and thought out what they want that arena to be.” The arena currently has power to run water for the stock, but not much else: no bleachers or concrete to mark the covered area. But for Silver Spurs members, the lack of amenities isn’t cause for concern. Most members hope the arena will help the club to return to the small-time atmosphere their rodeos used to embody. “That’s the kind of the appeal we’re trying to get back to, the feel of the outdoor arena,” Tyson said. “We love the Osceola Heritage Park and what it’s done for our club, but we still want to get back to the grassroots of the club and how it was founded, and hopefully, the arena will do that.” Eventually, the Silver Spurs would like to build a clubhouse next to the arena, Tyson said, though hesitant to comment on any details. “We don’t really know what our future plans are. We are in the process of doing that … for fellowship of the club,” he said. “(It would be) just a meeting place to call our own, where we can display some historical artifacts.” The clubhouse could be a place to hold annual membership meetings as well as board meetings and could house an office to manage the property surrounding the arena, Tyson said. The inaugural Invitational Ranch Rodeo Saturday was free to the public, barring a $5 donation to park vehicles. The association didn’t charge admission because the arena is still zoned agricultural. The Silver Spurs will have to work with the county to build the possible clubhouse and host any events there for which they could charge admission. The address of the new arena is 389 First Ave., Kenansville. |
