Come on BE!

SpottedCat

SpottedCat

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Just spotted this notice up on the BE site exhorting people to enter events earlier:
http://www.britisheventing.com/news...TER+IN+GOOD+TIME&section=59&sectionTitle=News

Well BE, that's all well and good, but isn't it about time you did your part too by reforming the waitlist/ballot/withdrawal system which unfairly penalises those of us without other horses to substitute if we have to withdraw?

If all oversubscribed events were forced to hold a public waitlist, which people were put on in order of being balloted (first person balloted is #1 etc), and then anyone who withdrew and who could be replaced from the waitlist got a full refund minus £10, then maybe, just maybe people might be more inclined to enter earlier.

I know that does not help those events which are undersubscribed, but lets face it, I, like many others, have got into the habit of not entering until the very last minute, often well after the ballot date, because I'd rather pay the £10 late entry fee or not have a run at all than risk losing the best part of £80-£120. If BE just made an effort to solve this problem, I think there would be a culture change and people would get into the habit of entering earlier rather than leaving it to the very last minute.

Yes, the organisers need to know in advance they can at the very least break even, but equally in these straitened times people need to know they are not going to lose money unnecessarily, and once you've formed the 'enter at the last possible minute' habit, it becomes hard to break, especially if you know events haven't balloted in the past!

It is very galling when one has to w/d, loses the entry fee, gets told no refund as no waitlist, offers to help as you'd planned to go anyway, then when reporting for duty sees Big Name Rider or Well Known Local Amateur has rocked up with an extra horse on the lorry 'just in case' and is allowed to enter on the day.....effectively meaning everyone else gets paid twice for one slot but the person w/d gets zilch. A public compulsory waitlist system is fairer for everyone....
 
i saw that and thought exactly the same as you.

bl**dy cheeky to ask people to enter earlier when you get penalised for entering late anyway!

the whole system needs a total overhaul and asking people to enter earlier so they can keep money from people who withdraw is just shameful.
 
millitiger said:
bl**dy cheeky to ask people to enter earlier when you get penalised for entering late anyway!

the whole system needs a total overhaul and asking people to enter earlier so they can keep money from people who withdraw is just shameful.
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Totally argree, one of the reasons we dont join BE anymore is because they kept too much of our money when we had to withdraw injured horses.
 
Well said SC! I haven't yet been stung by this but am waiting for the time when it's my turn, bound to happen sooner or later. :( It is so very unfair when events don't seem to make any effort to reimburse W/D entries when they are able to fill the slot.

Have you raised this on the ERA forum? Would be a very relevent topic for them to try and gather support for raising with BE. :)
 
Very well said. I wholeheartedly agree with you (and I expect 99% of others will too). However, do you think even this will change the wind of BE re a change in the withdrawal system? I think not :(
 
BE website said entried were open for Shelford yesterday, went on BDWP... oh no they werent!
 
Amen!

The organisers also have to take some stick here as any event offering (and clearly advertising) a fair transparent refund policy would surely have more entries than one without. I would vote with my feet and make an effort to enter an event like that. Carlton have always been brilliant so I have entered this year to show my appreciation.
 
I have a feeling of deja vu! Were they not saying this last year as well. Unfortunately nothing will change on this!
 
I think the whole entries system needs a re-think myself.

I too am leaving entries later - not just in case of injury, but because it takes organisers SO long to refund if they have to cancel............ (Catch 22?!!)

However, have actually been caught out by Hutton 2 cancelling both days, due to lack of entries for one of the days - more than two weeks before the event. They say they will refund 'as soon as possible' ..hmm! So those that entered early are the ones that are penalised..............:confused:
 
Oh I don't know. Once it becomes financially crippling for them to continue, they'll change... It's the nature of the beast :)
 
I just hate the complete apathy from BE 'oh people aren't entering early enough, rather than looking at why, and seeing what we can change about our systems to encourage them to enter earlier, we'll stick a notice up on the website telling them to be more timely and threaten them with not being able to get their qualifications, that'll learn them'.

Because your average amateur, which lets face it is the person who makes up the majority of the entries at BE, really does feel it makes a difference to their lives if they can't get x or y qualification, and doesn't at all think 'if I'm ready it would be nice to do so and so, if not, there is always next year'. The only people who NEED (as oppose to want ;) ) qualifications are the pros aiming for teams. The rest of us just have aims and ambitions and dreams and goals, but we can pretty easily rearrange our lives if it doesn't go quite according to plan. After all, we're not the ones trying to make a living out of it, we're spending our hard earned disposable income on it for fun! So this attitude is rather shooting themselves in the foot I think. Yes, I would be irritated if I couldn't get qualified to go to an event I planned to do. No, it would not be the end of the world if it happened, because at the end of the day this is just a hobby for me.
 
Saratoga said:
I wholeheartedly agree. So what can we do about it?
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I'm adopting the 'whinge on multiple forums' approach (HHO & ERA) given that the time a few years ago when I emailed BE outlining how I felt the system could be improved did not elicit so much as a 'bog off, you're irritating us' reply.... ;)
 
Couldn't agree more.

However, if certain events - for example South of England, offer 100% refunds for withdrawals up to 10 days before the event, why can't everyone else???

Withdrawals before the ballot date which are sometimes a month before the event simply isn't good enough and encourages people to do exactly what BE are complaining about.
 
I agree. I had to wd from two events earlier in the year and didn't do so till the day before just in case horse became sound. Neither held waitlists so there was no insentive to wd any earlier. Also a friend wd the day day before an event, no refund, turn up to the event the next day - space filled so twice as much money for BE!!
 
I needed to withdraw from an event earlier in the year and even though the space would have been filled i didn't withdraw until the v last minute (night before) due to hoping the event got cancelled and i got my money back that way!
 
And I've held off withdrawing lame horses until the last moment twice - both times as the event was possibly going to cancel anyway due to wet weather. It worked for me - planned to w/d the day before the event, event cancelled 48hrs before running, I got my money back.

I knew I wasn't going to be able to compete at least a fortnight in advance so if I got my money back for withdrawing I'd have w/d then, somene else could have had my slot and had the event run everyone would have been happy.

I've also taken horses that aren't fit to jump or xc for whatever reason to do the dressage or the dressage and SJing if it's not too far away rather than lose the entry completely. The event would have been far better with someone running in all 3 phases in place of me and I wouldn't have bothered going at all if I got my money back.
 
kit279 said:
Amen!

The organisers also have to take some stick here as any event offering (and clearly advertising) a fair transparent refund policy would surely have more entries than one without. I would vote with my feet and make an effort to enter an event like that. Carlton have always been brilliant so I have entered this year to show my appreciation.
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Oooh sorry to sidetrack. Which day are you there? Am there on Sat.
 
This is probably not a new idea and probably a silly one, but could there not be a "withdrawal" insurance, like the abandoment one, then if you do have to W/D you won't lose out, making you more likely to enter earlier and W/D sooner, making filling your space easier? I usually leave W/D late just incase I can go, if there is no chance of refund. Not really thought it through properly and I have probably overlooked some obvious problems with this idea but an idea is an idea :)
 
Afraid I did the only thing I could and voted with my feet! No longer event, no real place for your single horse owner once up to Intermediate level especially if you don't live way down South. If horse wasn't 100% which let's face it happens quite a lot, be it something quite trivial, you were very tempted to go to the event anyway because you had paid out a big entry and stabling as well, often. I couldn't afford to keep loosing entries and wasn't prepared to risk my horse if he wasn't right or the ground at the event was dire on occasions. If you have plenty of horses then the odd 1 going west isn't quite such a big deal I suppose. I was at an event a couple of years ago where the ground was terrible by the 2nd day. Many people withdrew but some didn't so lost my entry again. Don't miss it as much as I thought I would, do showjumping instead so unless it is a big competiton you can pay on the day. If you enter say 2 classes and the horse isn't on form you can pay for the class you did and not pay for the 2nd class.Better for the horse and my pocket.
 
well said SC...frustrating that they probably won't take any notice though...they never do. BE is a sport run for the professionals but funded mainly by the 'hobby-riders'... :(
 
I read it more as a warning that if we enter late continually then events like cheltenham get to 3 weeks before event see they can't make it pay with entries they have and then pull the plug.When in fact there may have been people waiting till last min and they maybe could have run.

I know a lot of people who were going to run at chelt but only 2 of them had entered!
It's not as much an issue about BE as making sure we as riders don't see events go from our calendar completely..We need to make sure we support our local and the 'good' events at what is a difficult time for all of us.

But i do agree about BE and encourage people to lobby them via this,be and era forum
 
i tend to enter early as a rule then its out the way and done

But in return for entering early and then having to withdraw i'd really like my money back!

BE really need to change their ideas on about this. For someone like myself and many others, when we enter an event its quite a bit of money gone! And in return for entering early what do we get? Our money lost.

afaic - shame on BE! they encourage us to enter early and have our money 'stolen' if we w/d
 
Totally agree with this, and I am lucky enough to have my daughters entry fees paid via sponsorship. We only withdrew her once from an event - and it was the event organisers actions - putting her on day before dressage on a weekday event (she is at school and I can get out her of school legitimately for one day, but not two), despite us not ticking the day before dressage box. This event had 200 riders and the organiser (rude, rude, rude b***h, who was more concerned about her pros than anyone else) said we could withdraw and she would pop someone else in she had done her event plans and she was not going to swop us around. Told me we werent going to get a refund as it was after ballot date - I only found this out when they posted the times about 48 hours before the event.

So they got our entry fee, plus another one. Also, we wont ever enter this event again. Its a really unfair system which favours the multiple horse owner and the pro. Come on BE, wake up and sort your act out.
 
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