The Kentucky State Fair Board met in late January and approved the following additions for the World’s Championship Horse Show.
The Bill Wise Sweepstakes program will be administrated by the Kentucky State Fair Board, therefore all the Sweepstakes classes will be held at the World’s Championship Horse Show. The classes will be: Two-year-old Fine Harness and Park; Three-year-old and four-year-old classes will be Three-gaited, Five-gaited, Fine Harness and Park Pleasure. For information concerning the Bill Wise Sweepstakes, go to www.wchorseshow.com, click on Menu and follow these tabs: The Show; Futurity and Sweepstakes Info; Bill Wise.
The class, ASB Country Pleasure – Five-Gaited, qualifier and championship have also been added to the schedule. If your horse was shown in these classes during the point qualifying period (July – December 2025), points and/or classes will be counted for your horse. The Kentucky State Fair World’s Championship Qualifying Requirements for Pleasure (Show & Country) and Park will apply to this class.
Due to the addition of the Bill Wise Sweepstakes and the other classes, another session will be added to the schedule. There will be twelve (12) classes starting at 11:00 a.m. the first Saturday of the show.
The WCHS Futurities will again be held at the Kentucky State Fair World’s Championship Horse Show. All entries in the 2025 WCHS Futurities are considered eligible at the regular entry fee at the closing date of the 2026 World’s Championship Horse Show. The 2026 Weanling can be entered in the class on the regular closing date. To enter a non-eligible colt, please pay the following amounts: Yearlings - $400.00; Two-year-old - $600.00 and Three-year-old - $800. There will be a “Buy-In” form posted soon on www.wchorseshow.com. This site has all information concerning the WCHS Futurities. Entries do not need to be entered in any other Futurities to be eligible.
The point system for the Pleasure and Park divisions will again be maintained by the Kentucky State Fair World’s Championship Horse Show. We will only use the classes from horse shows that have been registered with the Kentucky State Fair system. Last year we counted all that were turned in to a publication.
Please register for the show by going to www.wchorseshow.com, clicking on Menu, and Qualifying Points. Please register your future shows as soon as possible and send the results in as soon as possible, with the name of every horse that was shown in the class. Eligible horses will also be posted on the website www.wchorseshow.com
Any show that was held between July 1, 2025 and December 31, 2025 but was not registered can be registered by April 1, 2026 to have the results counted. Results should include every horse that showed in the class.
The judges for the 2026 Kentucky State Fair World’s Championship Horse Show will be the following: Robert Byers, St Simon Island, GA; Sandra Currier, Bellville, TX; Renee Lavery, Simpsonville, KY, Lisa Waller and William Waller, Heiskell, TN.
They will judge all divisions.
The dates for the Kentucky State Fair World’s Championship Horse Show will be August 22 – 29, 2026. We look forward to seeing you there.