Thunderbird Show Park

George Tidball built this

According to Business in Vancouver and horsesport.com, George Tidball was the first Canadian to open a McDonald’s franchise. The restaurant was in Richmond, in 1967. He sold those restaurants and founded The Keg.

Then in 1973 he and Diane Tidball built Thunderbird Show Park on farmland in east Langley. The BC Sports Hall of Fame inducted them both in 2017. George died in 2014, and the memorial was held at the park.

It is a strange and good sequence: hamburgers, steak, then horses. It is also the most Langley thing in the Township. The man who built two national restaurant chains did not put his name on a tower downtown. He put a world-class ring on a farm road, twenty minutes from the freeway, where nobody would see it unless they came looking. What it produced is a venue that has hosted the Fédération Equestre Internationale Jumping Nations Cup, which is the top tier of team show jumping in the world, in a Township of 132,603 people at the 2021 Census.

A new owner, this year

On 20 March 2026 the park passed out of Tidball hands for the first time in its history. Dana Matheson took ownership, and the venue announced it under the line “A New Era, Same Mission”. If you are weighing a property out here on the strength of the horse community, that is a fact worth holding: the community is deep and long-established, and the institution at the centre of it changed hands six months ago.

Going to watch

You can. Most people who live within twenty minutes of tbird have never been, on the assumption that it is a closed world. It is a working showgrounds on over a hundred acres of farmland, and in summer there is usually something happening in a ring.

The two gates are not interchangeable and this is where visitors go wrong. The spectator entrance is 6975 248 Street. The main show office is 24550 72 Avenue. Use the spectator gate on a show day, with one exception below.

From Highway 1, tbird directs spectators to exit at 232 Street, take 72 Avenue east from the roundabout on the north side, drive 3.5 kilometres over the railway tracks and past the competitors’ entrance, then turn right on 248 Street. It is about 35 minutes from Vancouver and 15 from the Abbotsford airport.

The grounds are wheelchair and stroller accessible, with accessible washrooms around the site. The roads are wide gravel and they are shared with horses, golf carts and bikes, so give yourself room. If you are using a wheelchair, tbird suggests the 72 Avenue entrance instead, because it gives the easiest approach to the Grand Prix ring. That is the exception to the gate rule and it is worth knowing before you park.

There is food on site, including the Bale & Bucket and stands around the grounds. Dates, tickets and what is running on any given weekend change constantly, so rather than repeat them badly: tbird’s visiting page, tickets, and the Grand Prix day guide are theirs and they keep them current. So is the grounds map, which is the thing to open first on a hundred-acre site.

What you are actually looking at

Show jumping is the most legible horse sport for somebody who knows nothing about horses, which is why it is the one that ends up on television. The rules fit in a paragraph.

A horse and rider go around a numbered course of fences against a time allowed. Knock a rail down and that is four faults. Refuse a fence and that is four faults. Go over the time and you start picking up faults for that too. A round with no faults is a clear round, and if several go clear they come back for a jump-off, which is a shorter course against the clock where the fastest clear wins. That is the whole sport. You do not need to know anything else to enjoy a Sunday afternoon.

The stars in an event name tell you the level. Five is the top, and tbird runs at it. An O in the classification, as in CSIO, means it is an official nations event where riders compete for their country rather than themselves. If you go once, go on a day with a five-star class in the Fort Grand Prix Ring. The difference between that and a regular class is visible from the grandstand even if you have never watched before.

The part of Langley with no name

Here is something you notice only if you work with the map. This corner belongs to none of the Township’s named neighbourhoods. Salmon River stops at 48 Avenue and 240 Street. Otter runs south of 48 Avenue. Glen Valley is the river corridor up at 88 Avenue. Between them sits a block of rural land that nobody branded, because nobody subdivided it.

The south end of the Township solved the same problem the same way, which is why Campbell Valley Regional Park carries the public riding infrastructure. Up here it is all private. That is the whole reason a show park could be built at this corner in 1973 and still be here in 2026. Most of this ground sits in the Agricultural Land Reserve. It was never going to become cul-de-sacs, so the parcels stayed large, and large parcels close to a world-class ring is what a horse property needs to exist.

Buying out here

If you are reading this you are probably not shopping. You are more likely a parent whose kid started lessons, working out what it would mean to stop hauling a trailer twice a week. That is the usual route into this market and it is a slow one, which is fine, because the inventory is slow too.

Horse properties around tbird come up rarely and they do not look like the rest of the Langley market. A few things to confirm before anything else.

The reserve status, first. It governs what may be built and how the parcel may be used, and it decides whether a plan for a second dwelling or a boarding operation is possible at all. Everything else follows from that answer.

Then the services. Out here that means well, septic, hydro and gas, and it means asking about water volume rather than just water. A barn changes the arithmetic, and a summer with horses on it changes it again.

Then the things a generalist will not think to ask. Whether a loaded trailer can actually turn around on the property without reversing onto the road. Where hay goes, and whether that building is dry and rodent-managed. Where manure goes, because on a small acreage it is a real logistical question rather than an afterthought. What the ring is built on, since footing is the expensive part and the part that fails quietly. Whether the fencing is horse fencing or whether it is fencing.

And the one people skip: whether you want a barn at all. Boarding nearby is a live option in this part of Langley, and plenty of families who thought they wanted the whole operation are happier with the land and somebody else doing the 6 am feed.

Then the supply problem, which is the real one. There is no listing feed for “acreage with a ring twelve minutes from tbird”. Parcels like that trade quietly and often before they are advertised, so the useful position is to be known to the people who might sell one rather than to watch a search page. The Langley market page carries what the wider market is doing while you wait.

Common questions

Where is Thunderbird Show Park?

At the corner of 72 Avenue and 248 Street in east Langley. The main show office address is 24550 72 Avenue, Langley, and the spectator entrance is listed separately at 6975 248 Street. It is rural on every side, which is not an accident.

Who founded tbird?

George and Diane Tidball, in 1973. They were inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 2017. According to Business in Vancouver, George Tidball was the first Canadian to open a McDonald’s franchise, in Richmond in 1967, and after selling those restaurants he founded The Keg. He died in 2014.

Who owns Thunderbird Show Park now?

Ownership transferred on 20 March 2026 to Dana Matheson, announced by the venue under the line “A New Era, Same Mission”. The park had been in Tidball family hands for its first 53 years.

What level of competition runs there?

International. tbird has hosted the Fédération Equestre Internationale Jumping Nations Cup, which is the top tier of team show jumping. For a venue in a Township of 132,603 people, 2021 Census, that is unusual, and it is the reason the horse community in this part of the Fraser Valley runs as deep as it does.

Can anyone go and watch?

Yes. It is a working showgrounds on over a hundred acres, and in summer there is usually something running in a ring. Use the spectator entrance at 6975 248 Street rather than the show office, with one exception: tbird suggests wheelchair users take the 72 Avenue entrance instead, because it gives the easiest approach to the Grand Prix ring. The grounds are wheelchair and stroller accessible. Dates and tickets live on tbird.ca and change constantly.

Can you buy a horse property near Thunderbird?

They exist and they are thin on the ground. Most of the land around 72 Avenue and 248 Street sits in the Agricultural Land Reserve, which governs what can be built and how the parcel may be used. That is the first thing to confirm on any offer, ahead of the barn and the ring and the footing.

Sources: BC Sports Hall of Fame; tbird.ca; Business in Vancouver, 7 April 2017; Langley Advance Times, 16 December 2016 and 24 June 2014; horsesport.com, 6 June 2014; Yahoo Finance Canada, 24 March 2026. This brokerage has no affiliation with the venue.