How far do you travel to compete, and what do you consider local

Casey76

Casey76

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Just curious really... I'm in Alsace in France, and I'm just wondering how far you travel to compete in the UK.

Today I made a 150km round trip to watch a couple of friends compete in SJ, and we actually consider this to be "local" as it is an hour away by trailer/lorry.

Fortunately we have quite a lot of venues within about an hour for SJ, but only 2 who host dressage comps. For ODE, there are a couple "locally", but more often than not we travel 2.5 hours (and consider this "normal").
 
Casey76 said:
Just curious really... I'm in Alsace in France, and I'm just wondering how far you travel to compete in the UK.

Today I made a 150km round trip to watch a couple of friends compete in SJ, and we actually consider this to be "local" as it is an hour away by trailer/lorry.

Fortunately we have quite a lot of venues within about an hour for SJ, but only 2 who host dressage comps. For ODE, there are a couple "locally", but more often than not we travel 2.5 hours (and consider this "normal").
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'Local' implies 30 mins or less in the trailer for me,so that's how long I'd travel for low key village shows.

. However I am happy to be on the roads for about an hour each way without being bothered; I'm in bedfordshire so keysoe, mk eventing, addington and bury farm are considered to be our 'local' big places, but that's a 96 mile circumference of places :)
 
I live in Cornwall, so I had to travel a fair distance when I was eventing, minimum of an hour and a half.

I competed on my own, the furthest I was comfortable going by myself was about four to five hours.

However we have a super local venue that runs affiliated showjumping and dressage just ten minutes away.
 
My "local" is under 5 minutes on a good day. I'll travel under an hour for dressage / sj type events, but with at least 3 decent venues within 30 minutes (dozens of less decent ones!), there's not often much need to. Have to travel further to do any meaningful xc schooling really as the ground round here's not great and a number of the courses are questionable.
 
I've got two really local venues to hack to for really low key stuff, then I happily travel anything up to an hour for affiliated BD. But we've got around 6 venues within that. XC we've got Somerford and Kelsall under an hour. Cheshire is ace :-)
 
To me local is within an hour and I am lucky that I don't have to go more than an hour for most things. Sometimes eventing I go a bit further. Yesterday was 2.5hrs and I consider that a long way.
 
For dressage, I have at least 5 venues within an hour; the nearest is 10 minutes. For endurance, I'd consider a 2.5h drive still "local" (the closest rides to me are 20 mins and 40 mins away; most rides in our branch are about 1h--1.5h away); for anything much farther, I'd stay overnight. Farthest I normally go is one or two comps that are 5h away, such as the Champs.
 
Local - we have an Eq centre where all the dressage and a lot of the showjumping is held. Now at new grazing is less than 10 mins drive. There is also a show once a year about 20/30 mins away in the country.

Because said Eq centre only has a handful of shows each season we have to travel to do anything else. I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with a good 2 hour+ drive to get anywhere civilised on either side. Last season I did a 5.5 hr, a 3.5 hr, and a couple of 2 hr (one way) journeys. These were all two-day shows or events so worth making the trip. Unfortunately both ways out involve really windy, hilly roads, if it was all flat it would be much easier!!

5-6 hours would be the max for me, it takes too much out of both of us any further but it does really limit us.
 
Not much around me, your looking at 40 mins to nearest show centre, rest are at least an hour away. Not that far mileage wise but the roads are crap and takes forever to tow there!
 
We are lucky to have several very good venues local to us requiring a journey of about 10-15 minutes . . . but the furthest we go is about an hour and a half.

P
 
Local is an hour or so away. Furtherest I have traveled to date was Lincolnshire to Somerset in a very old lorry that only went 40mph!! It took a long time but we were away 4 days and it was worth the long journey.
 
I have one sj/dr venue that is a short hack away, and three more that are within the 45min to 1 hour mark. Further than that isn't local to me anymore. Since I rely on lifts, I wouldn't ask to go any further than local - if I wanted to head south for winter regionals for example it's a 4-5 hour drive in a horsebox, so I would definitely rent!!!
 
Local is within about half an hour for me. Have several good UA venues in that distance near to me, and some really good venues that do both UA and affil within about 45 mins. I've also got a handful BE venues, which run both BE and UA, within an hour, and a few more up to 1.5hrs away. Somerford and Eland Lodge are probably the furthest I'd be willing to travel; both are about 1hr 45 for me and I wouldn't want to do anymore really.
 
I'm in Scotland. So for local riding club shows, they range from 20 mins away to 1h15.

Eventing - most are an hour or more. I traveled 4 hours each way on Saturday although this was a bit far in a day. Mostly they are 2 hours or so away.

BSJA - most venues are 1.5 hours away, same for British Dressage.

XC shooling venues can be anything from 1 hour to 2.5 hours away depending on what I am looking to do.
 
Our local driving nationals are 1 hour away and then 3.5 hours- we're very lucky! Furthest we've been is Hungary but most years we'll go to the lakes or wales (from Essex) which is 8/6 hours. Last show was 430 miles each way in Scotland.

For riding our local venue is 30 mins, with 3 others an hour (40 miles) away which are all 'local' really.
 
Any venue up to about 1.15 hours I would consider local, I try not to go any further for SJ or dressage. For eventing we will go up to 2 hours each way for a one day, it's as much about cost as travelling time as otherwise the cost of the diesel will ruin you!
 
I have three main dressage and SJ venues near me

One is 6 mins drive with horse, one is 10mins and another 20mins

That's local to me.
 
Most of the venues we go to are between 1 and 1.5 hours each way. Keysoe, Houghton, Bury, Valeview.
Hopefully Moulton college will restart BD again soon as that's just 15 minutes away.
 
We have a handful within an hour now that we are dressaging and will only need to go further afield for specific qualifiers or classes. However back in the showing days, used to fairly often have to do 3 - 4 hours for RIHS/HOYS classes and probably seldom did less than 2 hours although are fairly fortunate that time period covers a lot of places.
 
Local for me is within an hour and I have a lot of venues within that area. I will travel further for eventing but haven't really needed to bother going further than 2.5 hours each way so far.
 
Our nearest racetrack is 30 minutes away in the lorry; the furthest away we will race this summer is 8 hours away (we'll leave a couple of days in advance). The three closest tracks to us are within an hour's drive and we would class them as local compared to the rest!
 
For training I consider under 30 minutes local. That said I have a few venues 20 mins or less away that are fab so I don't really need to go further afield. For eventing we are very lucky and have 13 venues that are under 1hr 30 away and 20 venues which are no further than 1hr 45 away. I consider under 1hr local for grass roots eventing (and have 6 BE venues I can get to in that time) but going up the levels it becomes necessary to travel further. I would do up to 3 hours driving each way if eventing 2+ horses, any further and I would want to stay over.
 
We have about 5 rated (affiliated) Dressage shows and about 5 schooling (unaffiliated) with in 1 hour to 2 hours drive which I consider local after that you have to travel 6 to 12 hours to get to a show. America is big and I live in the middle of nowhere.

Its even worse if you do Eventing, rated is 1 show 2 hours away then you have to travel 12 hours to get to any other shows!
 
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