London International horse show

What was John's trophy for?

Just watched the small dogs, id run out of puff trying to keep up with them after about jump 1 😂 loved watching them though

Interesting to see lots of cross breeds, I thought as it was part of the kennel club theyd need to be purebreed? (Not a dog person!)
 
splashgirl45 said:
Loved the small dog agility
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I quite like watching the dog agility. I love the combined sj and agility class at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto. Horse jumps a course and then dog does agility and their scores are combined. You could have a fab sj round but the dog goes off-course or something! So you really really never know how it will turn out!!
 
Crazy_cat_lady said:
Has the Shetland racing become more "who you know"?

Swear it used to be children other than children of jockeys
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A couple of friends’ kids do it and it sounds like the clique-est thing I’ve ever heard of (and both are from big racing families). I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near it!
 
Crazy_cat_lady said:
What was John's trophy for?

Just watched the small dogs, id run out of puff trying to keep up with them after about jump 1 😂 loved watching them though

Interesting to see lots of cross breeds, I thought as it was part of the kennel club theyd need to be purebreed? (Not a dog person!)
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John was highest placed British rider. The Walwyn trophy.
 
j1ffy said:
A couple of friends’ kids do it and it sounds like the clique-est thing I’ve ever heard of (and both are from big racing families). I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near it!
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With have a yard person just finished her first year, not fast enough to qualify yet but they’ve loved it. Her younger pony will probably be quicker once they get him out, obviously been learning the ropes with something a bit more experienced.
 
I went for my first time on Saturday and won’t be rushing back although knowing the Excel well from work events so it was really interesting to see it transformed for LIHS and taking up so many halls!

The shopping was repetitive and there wasn’t loads of it. If you’ve been to any other horsey/country event this year, you’ve seen 90% of the stalls there.

The smaller arena had dog agility on all afternoon, which IMO has no place there. I’d much rather see the time given to horse related content considering it’s a horse show.

The Hungarian show was at best mediocre and at times a very uncomfortable watch. The horse in hand doing caprioles on our day looked very unhappy, it’s head was touching its chest in side reins, whilst pressure was applied with long reins and a whip - it hardly had anywhere to go other than up and out.

There were also long periods of time where both arenas were empty and the shopping rammed. It would be nice if this was staggered so there was better distribution of people and more choice of what to do.

A shame as I was so looking forward to a real horsey day.

We did get to see some very expensive horses sold at the auction which was an interesting watch! Particularly as one of the top lots stumbled four times in the arena during its auction.
 
We’ve been every year since it’s been run at Excel and I have to say this was my least favourite year. I totally agree about the shopping, very repetitive and not much choice, it was a shame to see some of the brands who usually attend did not come this year, a lot of the stall holders said the shopping footfall was definitely down.

I also didn’t think much of the Hungarian displays. I wish the cavalry did it every year or the mounted police as they are definitely the best at it!

We had friends doing the showing so it was amazing to watch them in the smaller arena, I do begrudge paying for extra seats for that though as we spent enough on the main arena tickets…so we stood but it was uncomfortable for over an hour and a half which the class took.

Another change which is a shame is they have done away with the spectator seating by the warm up arena/collecting ring, used to enjoy sitting there watching the horses. It’s now all VIP/champagne bar access only for seating. Another case of making more money from people! In general there is not enough seating for people milling about.

For the first time I’m not sure about going back next year which is a real shame.
 
St Nicnaclaus said:
I didn't go this year for the first time in years for various reasons despite being offered free tickets.
I know the event organiser so will feed back to him and his team on all the comments so they can tell the head honchos who give them their orders!
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Ahh thank you! There were a lot of empty seats on Sunday evening which used to be one of the most popular times so I definitely think they need to rethink how they do this show if they want to get a full house again, most people simply can’t afford to buy VIP access or hire boxes etc on top of the costs of tickets, food and drink which is already extortionate. Also they have changed how they charge for parking there now as it’s £25 for the day whereas it used to be that for 24hrs…we used to park our car overnight and stay at a local hotel. We had to stay elsewhere as I refused to pay £50 to park my car on top of everything else!
 
St Nicnaclaus said:
I didn't go this year for the first time in years for various reasons despite being offered free tickets.
I know the event organiser so will feed back to him and his team on all the comments so they can tell the head honchos who give them their orders!
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Send those tickets to me next year and I’ll give them to my niece. She and her other half went for the first time this year (Sunday showjumping) and loved it! They are both struggling for work contracts in a competitive environment, so this was the big christmas present as money is tight (live nearby so travel costs minimal).

As positive feedback, I was impressed by the quality of her view of the arena (she sent a couple of clips) from her seat. She said they were pleasantly surprised too, as they were on the back row. So that is quite nice to know - they were in the middle, on a short side.
 
St Nicnaclaus said:
I didn't go this year for the first time in years for various reasons despite being offered free tickets.
I know the event organiser so will feed back to him and his team on all the comments so they can tell the head honchos who give them their orders!
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Do you know if there is an email address we can feed back to?

Going again at the grain but I enjoyed the show as always & there were some positive changes I'd like them to keep!
 
The shopping has got bigger every year since it moved, it was tiny the first year post covid as usual a pretty big variety of stall types. So I'm not sure what people are expecting if they say its repetitive 🤷‍♀️

teacups having sat everywhere over the years including in a box (which are essentially back row) you do get a good enough view from whenever, the only seats I won't sit in are the ones at the start of the corners which aren't angled so you can end up with a crick neck, the proper corners are fine.
 
I've posted above about this, but a good way to get tickets to the LIHS is via Groupon. They release tickets for a lot of the session on there and they are half price. If you keep an eye on Groupon from Oct/Nov you'll see them. They're at most of the price ranges.

I volunteered a couple of years ago for the full five days which I enjoyed, but it was tiring as the shifts are long. We got two free tickets per volunteer to use, which we could use for restricted sessions, so I bought several more tickets on Groupon for the sessions I wanted to stay and watch (and which were fully booked) - and for other friends to come along. 🐎
 
I found the Hungarian display uncomfortable , the grey horses seemed ok but most of the dark coloured horses were fighting the contact and looked unhappy. The airs above the ground were awful especially the one with tight side reins on. If anyone’s feeding back to the organisers maybe lose the Hungarians for next year
 
I appreciate their efforts in trying to get different displays as that can get very repetitive but it does then mean they’re not as good as people would like them to be. I remember the uproar at the spurs/riding of I think the South American riders - I can’t quite remember where exactly they were from but I kind of appreciated the opportunity to watch other horse cultures.
The one person I won’t watch is santi Serra.

I think it was troublesome having them as the only display rather than the usual 2. The chariot racing fell completely flat coming after the driving World Cup final 😅
 
ester said:
I appreciate their efforts in trying to get different displays as that can get very repetitive but it does then mean they’re not as good as people would like them to be. I remember the uproar at the spurs/riding of I think the South American riders - I can’t quite remember where exactly they were from but I kind of appreciated the opportunity to watch other horse cultures.
The one person I won’t watch is santi Serra.

I think it was troublesome having them as the only display rather than the usual 2. The chariot racing fell completely flat coming after the driving World Cup final 😅
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Loved the many laps and celebrations by the driving teams. We did say if it was F1 they don't like the winner doing doughnuts.
 
ester said:
I appreciate their efforts in trying to get different displays as that can get very repetitive but it does then mean they’re not as good as people would like them to be. I remember the uproar at the spurs/riding of I think the South American riders - I can’t quite remember where exactly they were from but I kind of appreciated the opportunity to watch other horse cultures.
The one person I won’t watch is santi Serra.

I think it was troublesome having them as the only display rather than the usual 2. The chariot racing fell completely flat coming after the driving World Cup final 😅
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I was also unimpressed by the Hungarians show. I hadn't really thought of the chariot race being after the driving final. It is rather hard to be impressive with only two chariots pulled by two horses each driving wide after seeing the 4 in hand driving through tiny gateways (?) and then the prize giving with 12 horses and 3 carts (sorry my brain is refusing to come up with the correct word!) in the arena. I also found the floppy roman helmets a bit comical. I've previously seen a full Ben Hur race recreation at the Puy du Fou in France, where each chariot is pulled by four horses and I think there were 4 racing as well (so 16 horses in the arena).

I found the carousel rather boring and not very precise, you can see better at RS championships. I agree with a previous poster that said the black horses didn't look too happy. The capriole horses didn't look happy at all.

It's great to see different horse cultures, but this isn't really specific to Hungary. You can see similar and much better displays in Vienna or Saumur for example. Only the costumes were, I assume, specific to Hungary.
 
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