HOY sponsorship manager Ms Watson said in an effort to turn a profit next year the company would like to showcase the event to a broader audience.
"Trying to make a niche event in a niche industry work commercially as well as culturally and within the community is really hard," she said.
"So what we would like to do is look at the elements that we can use to broaden HOY."
Ms Watson said she attended the event for the first time last year and loved it.
"So I thought how do we get people like me, who aren't necessarily horsey, along to the event," she said. "Because then it is going to appeal to more people you are going to have more touch points with the community [and] the sponsors."
She said the non-equestrian elements they were looking at including in 2017 were food and wine, fashion, music and shopping.
Ms Watson said another way to move HOY forward was to take the event international by creating links with other horse shows.
"Through doing that - it opens you up to so many different platforms," she said.
As a part of the submission, Mr Mee said SMC were asking council to invest $150,000 into next year's event - clarifying that the money was neither a handout of a means to fill the $170,000 hole - but rather if the authority valued the event then they needed to invest in it.
"Big events can be turned around," he said.
"But it takes a lot of attention to detail in a lot of areas and a lot of expertise across the board.
"And we are very, very confident that, if we can get the right environment in place, we can do the same for HOY."
