So what has British Eventing done wrong?

[Ample Prosecco]

Surely the BE venues should liaise with each other rather than directly compete. It’s not in Kelsall’s interests either for anyone local to put an unaff on which clashes with their BE event, so why do it to Cholmondeley?

 

[Tiddlypom]

The Kelsall unaff is very much aping a BE event. No problem with that apart from that it is muscling in on the Cholmondeley BE weekend which is being held 45 mins down the road. Very poor show.

Classes 70cm to 1m. BE XC course designer. £70 entry fee.

 

[ycbm]

Surely the BE venues should liaise with each other rather than directly compete. It’s not in Kelsall’s interests either for anyone local to put an unaff on which clashes with their BE event, so why do it to Cholmondeley?

That's very, very poor form on Kelsall's part.

 

[RachelFerd]

The Kelsall unaff is very much aping a BE event. No problem with that apart from that it is muscling in on the Cholmondeley BE weekend which is being held 45 mins down the road. Very poor show.

Classes 70cm to 1m. BE XC course designer. £70 entry fee.

More like 20 minutes down the road...

 

[Tiddlypom]

More like 20 minutes down the road...

Yes, I was being unduly pessimistic even accounting for towing. Cholmondeley and Kelsall Hill are just 14 miles apart by road according to Google maps.

The same Kelsall who had to scratch the Friday of their 3 day spring BE event due to lack of entries...

 

[Lyle]

Whilst the competency to compete topic is different from the original topic of this thread, I thought I'd put some info in.
In Australia, the Horse Riding Clubs Association of Victoria (HRCAV) has a level assessment system that all riders must follow. It starts, across all the disciplines (dressage, showjumping, combined training, Horse Trials, showing) at Level 5, and moves up to Level 1 (or Advanced for dressage and showjumping). As perspective, Level 1 Horse Trials is the equivalent to 1* eventing, advanced dressage equivalent to EA medium. To compete, an accredited level assessor comes to your property and assesses you for the appropriate level of competition. To move up a level, you gain points while competing or you can get re-assessed. So perhaps a level assessment to assess competency to compete, and then MERs to move up?
Opens a can of worms though, doesnt it? Moving away from common sense and onus of responsibility, instead regulating even the lowest levels.

 

[lannerch]

The more I hear of Kelsall the less I want to support them and I’m local . They made no attempt to soften their hard ground at the event this year, it was rock hard, I’m assuming agrivating costs money, that’s all they seem to be interested in, and in this case money at somebody else’s expense!

 

[ycbm]

Creating this whole sub-system of unaffiliated events which disrupt the core calendar is SO ANNOYING. SO SO ANNOYING.

As I wrote on another thread, it was predictable as soon as BE dropped the heights. To get venues to run the lower heights they also had to drop the rule that no other events could be run over BE courses. I wonder how many people these days even remember that rule existed?

I don't see any way back from this. With increasing pressure on incomes, that isn't going to be going away any time soon, it feels like BE is going to have to find a way to almost match unaffiliated prices, or die.
.

 

[VRIN]

TBH Cholmondeley will attract the same people to their unaffiliated as will be running at Kelsall unaffiliated so I don't see that it will affect their entries for BE- I can't see many people would enter the BE event at Cholmondeley and then run the same horses at the unaffiliated one a week later.

 

[Wishfilly]

TBH Cholmondeley will attract the same people to their unaffiliated as will be running at Kelsall unaffiliated so I don't see that it will affect their entries for BE- I can't see many people would enter the BE event at Cholmondeley and then run the same horses at the unaffiliated one a week later.

I think it probably hurts BE as a whole, though. I'm down the other end of the country, so I don't know the events, but down here there are definitely people who would save money and go unaff, rather than doing BE on a day ticket. It'll potentially reduce entries to both events, so it just seems an odd choice on the part of Kelsall.

ETA: maybe it's just because we have so few BE events in the county, but here at 80/90 especially, there's huge overlap between the people who run unaffiliated and do, say 3-4 BEs in a season as well. But maybe that's because the ones who are really serious about BE end up having to drive 3 hours+ to get to events, which isn't an option for a lot of people for a lot of reasons.

 

[Tiddlypom]

Where are all the volunteers going to come from for the Kelsall unaff? You still need all the FJs, pole pickers, dressage writers etc etc for unaff. Many local regulars will already have volunteered for Cholmondeley BE.

I've volunteered for BE at Kelsall many times, but stopped doing so because the volunteer management got so chaotic. We were stood down for FJing at short notice once because they had booked too many FJs. Other times I turned up to be assistant dressage steward, only to find that two of us had been given the same job. Sometimes they had booked too many dressage writers, others times not enough. I decided that if they couldn't be bothered to manage their volunteers properly that I was no longer interested in helping.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

TBH Cholmondeley will attract the same people to their unaffiliated as will be running at Kelsall unaffiliated so I don't see that it will affect their entries for BE- I can't see many people would enter the BE event at Cholmondeley and then run the same horses at the unaffiliated one a week later.

It will affect Cholmondely because Kelsall is now offering direct competition the same weekend. There will be people wanting to event that weekend who now think twice about going to Cholmondeley as they can go to Kelsall instead. Plus, as TP says, it dilutes the pool of vounteers.

I am at the Cholmondely unaff because it's a Brigante Cup qualifer. But I have decided that I will only do those or BEs now.

 

[RachelFerd]

It will affect Cholmondely because Kelsall is now offering direct competition the same weekend. There will be people wanting to event that weekend who now think twice about going to Cholmondeley as they can go to Kelsall instead. Plus, as TP says, it dilutes the pool of vounteers.

I am at the Cholmondely unaff because it's a Brigante Cup qualifier. But I have decided that I will only do those or BEs now.

And it will also affect their next BE event. Because plenty of people will no longer see the point in running at Kelsall in September if they get to have a spin round something similar in July unaffiliated. They already upset a range of 90 competitors at the spring event because they cancelled the 3rd day due to lack of entries and the 90 then balloted out most of the PAYG entries.

What I don't understand, is that they could have perfectly legitimately put on a 70/80 unaff ODE day which wouldn't impact Cholmondeley in the slightest because Cholmondeley doesn't run 80. But as it currently stands, if Cholmondeley were planning to run the new Go BE classes at 90 and 100 to ensure the viability of their event, they've now been potentially hijacked by this.

Anyone with sense would run at Cholmondeley as the ground prep will be far better, especially since they are catering for novice/int horses.

 

[Squeak]

Interesting to see the news from BE about their investment in to training. I'm not sure it will manage to eradicate the concerns that people were just mentioning but it will hopefully help as well as potentially helping to create more of a community such as is available to the u18's.

Either way, another example of BE listening and trying to respond.

 

[LEC]

More concerning for me is that Rockingham have potentially said their very busy and well sponsored event is potentially unviable going forwards. Would be a huge loss.

 

[RachelFerd]

Interesting to see the news from BE about their investment in to training. I'm not sure it will manage to eradicate the concerns that people were just mentioning but it will hopefully help as well as potentially helping to create more of a community such as is available to the u18's.

Either way, another example of BE listening and trying to respond.

Was thinking about this for a bit and have to say that it sounds really exciting

a/ a 7-figure sum is a HUGE investment - 10 million+
b/ regional training open to all is a really bonus for creating local supportive eventing communities - i'm looking forwards to getting back into the training
c/ curriculum approach can hopefully address a lot of the safety and ignorance issues highlighted on this thread
d/ the investment is evidence that the role of a governing body goes much further than just providing the structure for some events - demonstrates that more can be achieved through centralising efforts rather than random hotchpotch of unaffiliated stuff

 

[j1ffy]

Was thinking about this for a bit and have to say that it sounds really exciting

a/ a 7-figure sum is a HUGE investment - 10 million+
b/ regional training open to all is a really bonus for creating local supportive eventing communities - i'm looking forwards to getting back into the training
c/ curriculum approach can hopefully address a lot of the safety and ignorance issues highlighted on this thread
d/ the investment is evidence that the role of a governing body goes much further than just providing the structure for some events - demonstrates that more can be achieved through centralising efforts rather than random hotchpotch of unaffiliated stuff

I hate to burst your bubble, but £10m is 8 figures…

 

[oldie48]

Sorry very late to this thread but had an interesting chat yesterday with friend who is just about to take her young horse to his first intermediate. She's an amateur rider who has been able to bring a few youngsters on to intermediate, these have mostly been home bred and she works full time to fund her riding. She's ridden one horse at advanced, they did three advanced in total before a field injury intervened. Competing at this level, she is up against the pros, which she doesn't mind in the least but it does mean although she does well, she generally doesn't win any prize money (which is rubbish anyway). Bringing her youngsters on, she doesn't bother to do BE until they are ready for a 100 and because she's ridden at advanced, albeit 7 years ago on a horse that she no longer has, she is excluded from the grassroots events. If she does 2 intermediates with her present horse she will have to stump up £100 to continue. She's not a pot hunter, so won't go out to do some of the UA series that have some very decent prizes (although I understand some pros are not that generous). I can't help thinking that BE's decision to widen access to riders by having 80s and 90s is at the heart of it's problems. It tempted riders away from the UA comps, which was detrimental to both the PC and RCs and now they are seeing riders being tempted back by UA comps with good prizes run at venues that used to be almost exclusively BE venues. Sadly it's the amateur riders who sit between these and the pros that seem to be carrying the cost and that is making BE even more elitist than it was. Apologies if this has already been said before but I stopped reading part way through this long thread.

 

[RachelFerd]

I hate to burst your bubble, but £10m is 8 figures…

Maths never was my strong point ??

 

[ester]

Skipton had cancelled despite go BE and PC also running.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Somerford will probably be next

 

[ester]

 

[RachelFerd]

Skipton had cancelled despite go BE and PC also running.

Yet another on my calendar to get cancelled. I gather 2 horse events unaffs in striking distance. Has to stop. Can't get sensible novice runs in

 

[TheMule]

I think the GoBE concept could be a success- I’m going to enter my young horse in one next month whereas before I simply wouldn’t have bothered with BE at all this year. But it’s new, the set up is a bit wishy-washy, it’s still quite pricey (I personally don’t think it should attract any extra cost in addition to the entry fee) and they haven’t spread the word far enough yet IMO

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Yet another on my calendar to get cancelled. I gather 2 horse events unaffs in striking distance. Has to stop. Can't get sensible novice runs in

Somerford is the same weekend. Skipton are suggesting people go there instead. Thpough their decision to run or not is TODAY

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Oh sorry - Ester already said that!

 

[Patterdale]

And now Kelsall are putting on an unaffiliated which will clash with Cholmondeley Castle just down the road. I find it utterly stupid.

Why would they do this?? Of all the other weekends they could run!?
I’ve entered Kelsall unaff purely because they are running an 80 and Cholmondeley aren’t. I’m hoping to do Cholmondeley unaff 80 the week after.

Honestly though I’m tempted to withdraw because I don’t want to support this. I hadn’t realised - Cholmondeley wasn’t on my calendar due to not having an 80 so I didn’t see the clash.

Kelsall are not running over the BE course either, they’re running xc in the arena eventing field which I think will disappoint a few people.

 

[RachelFerd]

Somerford is the same weekend. Skipton are suggesting people go there instead. Thpough their decision to run or not is TODAY

Somerford isn't running 90 for the youngster and (annoyingly) older horse doesn't showjump well on their (beautiful) surface.

 

[YorkshireLady]

i am really worried that too many venues will cease to offer next year. it is a real shame

 

[RachelFerd]

i am really worried that too many venues will cease to offer next year. it is a real shame

Yep, this is v much my worry too. As someone who wants to be running simultaneously with 2 horses at 90/100 and at novice/int next year, I can see a really frustrating situation where I have to travel the length and breadth of the country with the older horse, and the young horse will have to go to badly scheduled unaff events because the bottom end of the sport has collapsed. Result is massively increased costs for me - and no logical progression route for anyone with ambition in the sport.

I really hope this doesn't happen. I don't think there's much more that the leadership of BE can do - they've been impressively quick to react on this, but circumstances are not in their favour.