The 120-year legacy of the Devon Horse Show has been etched in gold — the gold lettering of an historic marker. But leadership that rode in this year has trampled on the effort to commemorate the obstacles overcome throughout the years to make the 11-day, $4 million event what it is today.

“The horse show’s leaders did not support the effort to secure the blue-and-gold marker, which commemorates the 120-year-old show as the nation’s oldest and largest outdoor multi-breed horse competition, so they refused to allow the roughly 12-foot signpost on (the) grounds,”a recent Philly.com article reported. “Its placement instead on the site of former stables along the westbound side of Lancaster Avenue is another move in a tug-of-war that has included a leadership coup, speculation about the show’s future, and calls for its grounds to be preserved.”

The marker was first requested by a former horse show president, carried out by Tredyffrin-Easttown Historical Society President Michael Morrison, paid for by the Devon Preservation Alliance and put up on land across the street owned by property management firm Eadeh Enterprises.

“We love the horse show and the horse show grounds,” Eadeh President Stacey Ballard said in the report. “We … felt that it was a great recognition on the state’s part to acknowledge that it had this historic significance.”

The marker joins more than 2,400 others across the state, each of which “establishes an important link to the past,” the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Howard Pollman said.

In addition, Heritage Guild Works’ Eugene Hough plans to assemble a more thorough history of the horse show with the help of local students.

“There’s so much more of the story of Devon to tell,” Morrison noted.

Read more about the historic marker’s unveiling ceremony on Philly.com here, and check out previous VISTA Today coverage of the controversy behind the running of the Devon Horse Show here.