Explanation of how Uni team friendlies plus BUSA comps work?

[teapot]

Basically, can someone in a nutshell explain how both the friendlies and actual BUSA comps run/work etc?

Just getting ideas together so that if and when we need to approach a yard regarding friendlies, we've got all the details

Ta muchlies,

Oh and I'm presuming that you guys paid the yard for running a friendly?

 

[tigers_eye]

Santa145 would be good to ask! I know for the BUSA comps there was a pool of money, not sure if entirely provided by our AU, for paying the yard for their time and use of facilities.

Basic requirements for a BUSA comp is: 4 horses capable of a Novice test, and fit enough to do it several times and be warmed up for each; 4 horses capable of jumping several rounds of about 90cms; people to prepare them (plait, tack-up) and show them off, arenas suitable for dressage and jumping, and a suitable warming up area; a suitable location (tea room or similar) for lunch and score-board etc. It is usually the responsibility of the uni people to find the (listed) dressage judge, a writer, scorer, jump judge, rosettes, lunch and so on.

 

[Santa_Claus]

echo what T_E has written.

As for costs etc our AU was fairly stingey and in the last year would only pay for 1 of our BUSA teams and not everything then was paid for. Depends very much uni to uni what you can get them to pay.

You will have to pay for the venue, in our case we hired out the entire yard as we used a small riding school between 9am and 4pm and negoiated a rate with the yard accordingly in relation to how many horses we used and the finish time etc. It was normally somewhere between £300-400. You will also have cost of rosettes (order well in advance), judge's travel (again book judges WELL in advance).

Another note is making sure there is at least one standby horse per discipline. I a horse goes lame just before you will need a replacement.

For friendlies you will normally have to fund them from either club funds or by the riders competing.

if you need any more info just ask

 

[teapot]

thanks guys

We're a good sporting university so hopefully people will jump at the chance

 

[Aragon56]

Hi, I was in the second friendly team at my uni earlier this year and we competed against 3 other teams-Oxford, Exeter and Bath. We didn't actually have to pay anything to compete though-just our membership fee for joining the riding club and a practice lesson beforehand. It sounds similar to the BUSA set up, except less competitive-4 horses to do a prelim dressage test on, then another 4 for showjumping. The best three scores go towards your teams mark so one riders score would never count. We had four matches in all and would visit each team for their match, and had a home match at our stables (which was a bit of shambles compared to everyone elses to be honest...)

I'm not sure if it works like this is in every friendly team but we were pretty much left to our devices once the team was formed-we would be told when and where our match was and organise the rest ourselves.

Good luck to you anyhow