Dale Harvey: “You, you’re worth it.”
By Dale Harvey | Nov 19, 2025
Dale Harvey, a former Grand Prix rider who twice represented Canada at the FEI World Cup™ Finals, is now the CEO of West Palms Events, a show management company that has produced events from USEF A-rated to FEI 5* levels. In 2015, Harvey established the Michael Nyuis Foundation to help give under-resourced young riders the opportunity to compete at Hunter/Jumper competitions. This is Dale’s story.
Michael was a daredevil.
A real sportsman. An avid skier. A snowboarder. A mountain man, really. He enjoyed lots of outdoor, adrenaline-filled activities.
This one weekend, we were up the mountain snowmobiling. It was me, two of my brothers, Michael, and a friend from Spain. Michael was going to snowboard down, which he did, and my brother was supposed to video it but he left the lens cap on the camera. So Michael went back up the mountain to do it again, and on his way down he literally set off an avalanche. As we were filming it.
It was terrifying.
With avalanches, you think that it’s all snow. Well, it’s not snow. It’s chunks of ice and debris and all kinds of stuff. Somehow Michael was able to stay on top with his snowboard and pretty much landed right at our feet where we were parked with the snowmobiles.
I remember it like it was yesterday. He stood up and he looked at us on camera and he said, “Don’t tell my mom.”
That was just Michael.
I have three brothers and three sisters. Michael was my nephew, and we were really close. In the last few years, we didn’t spend a lot of time together, but when we got together, it was like we had been together the day before.
He was just about to turn 42 when he died. He was hiking on a fairly well-known trail north of Vancouver and had a heart attack. He was so far into the trail that there was really no help, and I don’t know whether it would have mattered. That was the end for Michael—he died doing what he loved.
It’s hard losing someone so young and especially somebody that was so dedicated to helping other people. He was really a selfless individual.
I knew that about him, but it really hit home at his memorial.
The service was held in a hotel downtown. It was a huge ballroom. And I mean, it was standing room only. The crowd literally was outside the door and down the stairs into the lobby of the hotel. What I discovered in those days after he passed was story after story of him doing incredible things for people just out of the goodness of his heart and on every level—from people that were living on the streets to people that he helped with their career or whatever it was.
He really was all about that.
And he was very non-materialistic. We had talked a lot about that prior to his death, just his philosophy on greed and coveting things and wealth and accumulation. When you have money and you’re doing well, everyone is willing to help you, but when you have nothing, very few people will step up. Well, that wasn’t the case with him.
Michael’s memorial really opened my eyes. I don’t think his death changed me, but it accelerated my priorities in the way I live my life and what I was doing with my career.
At that time, I had done a lot of philanthropic work with Compton Junior Posse, an inner-city program in Compton, CA, that was working to get inner-city kids off the street after school. Will Simpson connected me with Mayisha Akbar, who ran the program, and we started doing grants for those kids to compete at my shows and to send them to the Del Mar World Cup in school busses and stuff like that just to give them the opportunity to get involved.
After Michael passed, we established it as a charitable foundation called the Michael Nyuis Foundation (MNF) to support under-resourced young riders, and eventually started to develop a little broader curriculum.
MNF began giving grants to young riders aged 14–25, who otherwise would not have been able to afford to compete, and it grew from there. Now, we do workshops and clinics with top riders like Tiffany Foster, McLain Ward, Beezie Madden, Mandy Porter, Karl Cook, you name it.
But the program goes beyond the show ring.
All the recipients have to volunteer and work behind the scenes at the shows. They put in three hours per show at West Palms Events because there’s “no free lunch in life.” A huge part of the program is the commitment and follow–through, and we’re really strict about that. They have to make sure that they’re meeting their volunteer requirements and show up on the calls. Each recipient is required to be fully engaged and make a commitment to use the grant to its fullest.
In December 2024, we hosted our inaugural Michael Nyuis Foundation Charity Horse Show in Los Angeles. All of the current MNF Grant Recipients participate in organizing and running the show. It’s a Christmas show, so it’s got a great theme and atmosphere—the vibe is like no other show we’ve ever done. All the recipients pick a department they want to work in, whether it’s finance or hiring or facility liaison, and they help with the actual production of the show.
The MNF program helps shape these young individuals, in terms of accountability, responsibility, and reliability. It hones skills that they can bring with them into the real world to college, careers, and beyond.
The difference that I see in a lot of the MNF Grant Recipients, from the beginning to the end, is the confidence that it gives them.
Just the mere fact that they were chosen is something that’s never happened to these young people before. Nobody’s ever said, “You, you’re worth it.” And, it is life-changing for many of them.
I was at one of our shows in Los Angeles this summer and I had four kids come up to me that are now young adults and all four of them said, “I’m working for so-and-so and I’m so-and-so’s assistant and if it wasn’t for this program, I would never have been able to get to this point.” So, we have a huge track record.
Skylar Wireman, Amanda Gomez, Trent McGee, and Ian McFarlane were all in the program. We have probably over two dozen past recipients who are now young, successful equestrian professionals. It’s amazing and I’m very proud.
But there is still so much more we want to be doing.
There are supposed to be 12 recipients every year, but it always ends up being 18 because we can never get it down to 12. Last year, we had over 150 applications and at least 50 of them deserve to be in the program.
And that’s the hardest part. Because I understand what it’s like not to have access—I didn’t have it as a young rider either.
I grew up in North Bay. It’s a remote part of Ontario. There’s no show barn there. There were five or six horses, a couple geese, and some chickens. We didn’t have a ring. We didn’t really have jumps. I made the course out of whatever I could find on the farm—telephone poles, barrels, 50–gallon drums, all this junk basically. I would take these horses that my dad would find and make them work. As I got a little older, I ended up with a horse that I was able to go and do some junior jumper stuff with down in Southern Ontario and Toronto. It was just unlikely that I would end up in this industry or this business.
But through the help of a lot of different people and an obsession with it, I was able to make something happen. I have a list of folks that have helped me at different stages along the way: my parents, Mike Grinyer, Kenny Nordstrom, and Scott King, Kyle King’s dad. I mean, I have to do it for somebody else, obviously.
So that’s what I’m trying to do with the Michael Nyuis Foundation.
I want to try to expand it in terms of what we’re able to do for the recipients. I want to get to where we can provide help for kids wanting to do the medal finals and Young Riders, to give them opportunities outside of West Palms Events and our partner shows. But it comes down to fundraising and growing our donor base. For many years, I funded the foundation on my own, with the help of a few donors along the way. We are looking to take the Foundation to the next level.
We’re in our tenth year for MNF and we just passed a million dollars in grants.
I have moments where I think, ‘What are we doing?’ We should be feeding homeless people and doing something more basic. Or I get frustrated with the industry. But I think that the benefits of the program are so much broader than riding and competing. I think the riding part is really a footnote.
What keeps me motivated is our mission to try to give those young people an opportunity they wouldn’t otherwise have. I believe Michael would be proud of that.
I always sort of give my head a shake and wonder, what would he think about his name being out there like it is? Just the fact that people can pronounce it! It’s a well-known name now. I think he would laugh about it. He would think it was pretty funny.
Interested in supporting the Michael Nyuis Foundation? Head to nyuisfoundation.org to learn more.
Michael Nyuis Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization: EIN # 87-3490307.
