After six years leading the transformation of Desert International Horse Park in Thermal, California, into a world-class venue, co-owners Steve and Lisa Hankin have stepped down from their roles at DIHP. The couple purchased the horse park in 2019 alongside an ownership team that included the Smith, Meadows and Harvey families. Steve, who led the ownership group as the CEO, announced the couple’s departure from the operation in an email on July 30.

“There’s so many reasons why it happened, and so many reasons why you hoped it wouldn’t happen,” Steve said. “In the end, the partners couldn’t really figure out how to move forward in a good way, despite what we accomplished. So it’s sad, and I certainly am sad about it.”

The remaining DIHP partners bought out the Hankins’ share of the business, saying that the original ownership team had reached a point where their vision for the park was no longer aligned with Steve’s as CEO. Their future plans for the venue include moving it to a larger, purpose-built facility two miles away from the current location.

“We decided, as owners, that we want to be more involved in the business and decided it was time to move on from Steve,” Jeremy Smith said. “I think that was the biggest thing. You know, every partnership runs its course over time. It seems like it was time to basically part ways. So the three of us got together and made that happen. 

“Steve did a good job of exercising our vision,” he added.

That vision involved upgrades to the facility, including adding rings, new footing and an extensive bridle path, building out 12-by-12-foot stalls, and expanding the venue’s competition schedule—things Steve said were made possible by hearing the needs of riders, owners and trainers with a “yes attitude.”

“I knew every inch of that place, and there were so many things that were important to us that I learned,” Steve said. “I learned what a ‘horse’s horse park’ means, and why people would say horses were happier at our horse show than other horse shows. I mean, there’s no greater compliment than that.”

One of the highlights of Steve’s history with DIHP, he says, wasn’t the planned upgrades to the facility but an unexpected crisis. In 2022, the team experienced an EHV-1 (equine herpes) outbreak at the facility, and Steve and the show management team were forced to navigate the outbreak mid-season, with hundreds of horses on the premises. He believes that their response, and the protocols and research they championed with help from epidemiologists at University of California, Davis, will have a lasting impact on horse show management.  

“We funded research from the day [the outbreak] ended until last week, just trying to understand treatment protocols and vaccine protocols and ways to think about how to find sick horses, and how to manage risk,” Steve said. “We built our own lab, and we’re the only facility in the United States with a dedicated biosecurity vet.”

Steve said he has received more than 200 messages since announcing the end of his and Lisa’s chapter with DIHP. He doesn’t think they’re done working in the horse show industry, and by the supportive response he’s received, the industry is not done with the couple. 

“We’re going to continue to find opportunities to build the sport,” he said. “I think we have a good reputation, and I think we have a good, unique way of thinking about it. I’m working on a project north of L.A. to build a new horse park with someone who’s just a wonderful person and wants to build a horse park.”

Expanded Horse Park Proposed

As for DIHP, Smith says they’ll forge ahead with their shared vision but don’t plan to place a CEO at the helm to replace Steve. 

“There won’t be a new CEO, so to speak,” he said. “We’re definitely going to put in a show manager. In the past, Steve wore every single hat. Every decision in the company had to go through him, which was one of our challenges. I think that’s a lot for anybody to take on, so we’ll separate that out a little bit to make sure that whoever we bring in, with the goal of guiding our team and supporting our team, is there. We won’t overburden them with way too many things.”

That next chapter includes plans to move DIHP to a new facility, Thermal Ranch, a multi-purpose facility that the DIHP team has been planning for the past four years. At 619 acres, it is approximately 30% larger than the current location.

“Long-term vision: In four years, we hope to be at Thermal Ranch, which is a new purpose-built facility for the Desert Horse Park—a new brand new facility with housing around it, hotels, shopping centers, new arenas, everything, two miles down the road from where we are,” Smith said. “That’s a major investment that we’ll be making over the next four years. It will be the permanent home of show jumping on the West Coast.”

For Steve and Lisa, he says that while the end of their work in the desert is disappointing, he’s proud of what they invested into the park, and what it returned. For all the tangible upgrades, he sees the park’s reinvigorated reputation as the most telling change.

“If you had said five years ago that we would be where we are today in terms of reputation, in terms of recognition around the world, in terms of quality, the support of the sport that we have, I think people would have laughed at you, right?” he said. “You don’t really do what we did in five years very often.”