So what has British Eventing done wrong?

I'm gobsmacked to hear that Kelsall and Somerford BE are struggling to get entries. They are both superbly run competitions over brilliant courses.

£££s are tight, though, the rocketing cost of living has got to be having an impact even among the historically well heeled eventing community.
 
Tiddlypom said:
I'm gobsmacked to hear that Kelsall and Somerford BE are struggling to get entries. They are both superbly run competitions over brilliant courses
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And slap bang in an area with a high population of competitive riders too. If those two venues can't make it work nobody can.

I met someone today who works at a big local tourist attraction. She says a slow day is 400 visitors, yesterday they had 140. I think the cost of living must have a lot to do with this.
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I wonder if it's a bit of a double whammy, cost of living has increased and more people are commuting again after the lockdowns. I had completely forgotten that I used to set aside £250+ a month to commute and I have got very used to having that in my pocket. Plus the coffees, snacks, friday drinks etc. And there will be people paying far more in train/petrol than that.
 
Kelsall had to cancel a day too. I looked at the entries for Somerford yesterday and there wasn't so very many.

Some people are commenting that its because of the lack of insurance which may be an issue but I think the lack of refund if something happens is also a big reason that people don't enter early.

I have been very surprised and consider myself lucky that I have been fully refunded for a BD dressage event and an unaffiliated ODE as I have broken my ankle. This wouldn't have happened with BE and its a lot of money to 'lose'.
 
ycbm said:
And slap bang in an area with a high population of competitive riders too. If those two venues can't make it work nobody can.

I met someone today who works at a big local tourist attraction. She says a slow day is 400 visitors, yesterday they had 140. I think the cost of living must have a lot to do with this.
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Whereas the one I work at is having a very healthy year for visitors! It’s really difficult to predict though - location/population density/domestic vs international travel & holidays/weather etc all come into play. The tourism market is having a funny old year.

I’m really sad about Somerford. It’s fantastically well run and usually a really nice, fair course so I can’t see it being first to be dropped off most people’s lists. Scary times.
 
Pinkvboots said:
I have never evented but I think competition in general has had a massive decline its really sad ?
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I'm not sure I feel sad about it, I felt amateur horse owing lost its way a bit in the last 20 years. It felt almost as if huge numbers of horse owners were wanting to be Charlotte or Oliver, and even at the lowest levels the emphasis became comparing performance against others and winning points/rosettes. I never heard the term "happy hacker" used disparagingly about a horse or a rider in the earlier years of horse owning.

I've made a personal choice to go back to loving my horse for who he is and not what he might be able to do, and I sense (perhaps wrongly?) a lot of people around me going in the same direction.
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I actually think competition has just become quite a serious thing now because it has large amounts of money attached. I always had very nice ponies but they did everything in the summer from showing, xc, sjing and then hunted in the winter etc The level of competition was a lot less as we didn’t have the number of equestrian centres churning out options and it was PC or RC and that was pretty much it unless affiliated. The local show has died and I think that says a lot, people are very precious even about their kids ponies and it’s all quite serious in dr lessons etc for kids. I wonder how fun it is now for kids as all very structured whereas my pc lessons were galloping around bareback, going down cavaletti chutes and all swapping ponies.
 
I think the ground has a lot to do with it. We just had a fab weekend at Somerford camp, but the XC ground was so hard, I did very little.

I have a XC lesson booked at GDL on Saturday, if it is as hard, then we will just be hacking round again as a lesson in independence.

I never run on hard ground, but it is dispiriting when you travel 3 hours, pay out lots of money, only to walk the course and get back in the truck for a 3 hour drive back again.

I had intended to BE this new one but, TBH at present, I think we will be unaffiliated. It is cheaper, I can often enter late and we will only be doing lower levels.
 
Yes, i think folk arent willing to cough up to enter a month in advance when the british weather is so unpredictable. Ground is hard now, i wouldnt want to gamble £100 on what it will be like in 30 days. X
 
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Lexi_ said:
Whereas the one I work at is having a very healthy year for visitors! It’s really difficult to predict though - location/population density/domestic vs international travel & holidays/weather etc all come into play. The tourism market is having a funny old year.
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Does the place you work at belong to one of the stately home organisations, which members can then visit for free? We are working our 3 memberships hard, and are reining in on one-offs.
 
Red-1 said:
I think the ground has a lot to do with it. We just had a fab weekend at Somerford camp, but the XC ground was so hard, I did very little.

I have a XC lesson booked at GDL on Saturday, if it is as hard, then we will just be hacking round again as a lesson in independence.

I never run on hard ground, but it is dispiriting when you travel 3 hours, pay out lots of money, only to walk the course and get back in the truck for a 3 hour drive back again.

I had intended to BE this new one but, TBH at present, I think we will be unaffiliated. It is cheaper, I can often enter late and we will only be doing lower levels.
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ycbm said:
I'm not sure I feel sad about it, I felt amateur horse owing lost its way a bit in the last 20 years. It felt almost as if huge numbers of horse owners were wanting to be Charlotte or Oliver, and even at the lowest levels the emphasis became comparing performance against others and winning points/rosettes. I never heard the term "happy hacker" used disparagingly about a horse or a rider in the earlier years of horse owning.

I've made a personal choice to go back to loving my horse for who he is and not what he might be able to do, and I sense (perhaps wrongly?) a lot of people around me going in the same direction.
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But these events are weeks away. I certainly wouldn’t be running on this ground but somerford / tweseldown are end May so it seems very unlikely that the weather won’t change by then.

£100 quid is a lot to gamble on though, that said.
 
Michen said:
£100 quid is a lot to gamble on though, that said.
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Having just lost over £83 withdrawing from an unaffiliated ODE at a BE site 5 days before (cut off was 7 days) due to horse being a bit 'off' and still chasing £45 from 2 BD classes I had to WD from as I am out of action for a few weeks I am done with it all whether unaff or aff. I organised a different rider for my horse too for the ODE who was so disappointed not to run.

My email from BE this week wanting to renew my membership and having just renewed BD I feel that when I get back in the plate, I will be a very happy hacker a la YCBM! Just can't be arsed to spend so much money training and entering for it all to go bristols vertical any more.

(sorry having a woe is me day as so fed up after 3.5 weeks of not riding and not out of the woods yet)
 
I do feel that the changing population of non pro riders is also part of this. There is an ageing population of people that rode competively have always done so alongside work.

it is much harder now post 21 to do this and save for house etc etc and all the other pressures. I really feel that this is what is affecting all the sports not just eventing.
 
Pinkvboots said:
I have never evented but I think competition in general has had a massive decline its really sad ?
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It appears so.
2 x local events this weekend, 1 unaff dressage at super indoor arena and the other jumping - the 1st outside on grass event for that RC.
Both normally pretty full in previous years, indeed last year both rammed.

Dressage entries closed last night, no more than 11 per class (some less) - previously its had full classes of 30 well before closing date.
Jumping event has similar entries, again - this is usually packed out. Ground there is pretty good even at present.

Seems many are cutting back on costs of travelling out this year?

TFF, cheerfully happy hacking a few times a week.....
 
Nicnac that's rubbish. So sorry and hope you get your BD money back soon and get back on board.

Eland ODE is full this weekend with a waitlist. Classes from 70-100 and a Brigante Cup Qualifier. So some people are still getting out. That's unaff though.
 
I know Port Elliot have been struggling for entries for some classes this weekend, and I do wonder if it's been impacted by having Bicton the week before. We don't exactly have a lot of BE events down this way anyway, and I know East Devon and Cornwall aren't that close, but I also know people who travel from West Cornwall to Bicton.

I think putting them so close together will have possibly impacted entries for both, but I do think Port Elliot has suffered as a consequence.

I do think the cost of living (and also the fear of it) is impacting people's choices right now- as well as the cost of diesel! For a lot of people, I think cost will be the main consideration at the moment.
 
Michen said:
But these events are weeks away. I certainly wouldn’t be running on this ground but somerford / tweseldown are end May so it seems very unlikely that the weather won’t change by then.

£100 quid is a lot to gamble on though, that said.
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I don't know, I am back at a Somerford camp on the 13th May and have already cancelled my XC lessons, choosing to do dressage and arena jumping only. TBH, I booked the camps for XC but the schooling area, that I was convinced would be OK as it is billed as all weather, was simply not useful to us, other than as a hack round.

The take off and landing sites were apparently hard core with dust, but the dust had set hard over the hard core. Most of them were at least flat, but some were not level. A good go round with a harrow would have sorted it.

I dare say that if I'd had a mature, fit, experienced horse I would have done some, but not with a first time, unbalanced baby.
 
The ground thing is interesting, 15 years ago when I was doing most of my eventing we ran on any ground. Doing aeration and watering wasn't a thing. My horses stayed sound well into their 20s and yet ones now seem to barely make it to 10.

I did all my fast work out hacking on the same ground, maybe that conditioned them.
 
@Michen it's nearer £200 than £100 to gamble if you're payg.
Prices have gone up considerably, getting cheaper the more you do is only useful if you want to run more. I've just been put off entirely by the cost, I only would have run a couple of times anyway.
Also, it's one thing to compete on firm going, that's a one off for one day and in my experience the courses are often managed to offset that. However, to compete you have to train and do fitness work which for me is a much bigger concern than competing on current ground
 
shortstuff99 said:
The ground thing is interesting, 15 years ago when I was doing most of my eventing we ran on any ground. Doing aeration and watering wasn't a thing. My horses stayed sound well into their 20s and yet ones now seem to barely make it to 10.

I did all my fast work out hacking on the same ground, maybe that conditioned them.
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When I started in the early 90s a very experienced eventer said to me "in this country, if you don't run when it's hard and you don't run when it's muddy you will never run at all, so just go". There was no ground conditioning back then, if you were lucky they'd got a farmer to power harrow a track but that just created a dangerous loose surface on top of hard ground.

One of my horses did get hock arthritis at 10 but to be honest with his conformation we were lucky he didn't have it before that. I've never pulled for hard ground and never had a horse with so much as a filled leg from it, jumping up to BE Novice.
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shortstuff99 said:
The ground thing is interesting, 15 years ago when I was doing most of my eventing we ran on any ground. Doing aeration and watering wasn't a thing. My horses stayed sound well into their 20s and yet ones now seem to barely make it to 10.

I did all my fast work out hacking on the same ground, maybe that conditioned them.
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The Aussies would say the same thing.

A lot will depend on the type of horse. Big moving, heavier types are not going to do well. TB light framed types without big movement or jump will be fine. Tbh I have one Warmblood who doesn’t mind the hard but she kind of floats across the ground and she isn’t hard on herself over the jump so I don’t worry about the ground too much especially as competing at 90/100. Plus I condition on it as all my jumps are in a field. So not just ridden on beautiful surfaces. Her sister is a heavier lump who lands quite heavily over a jump so I am much more careful with her. She loves good going and will go in mud unlike her sister who has no 4WD at all. So as with everything it’s horses for courses.
 
We've missed so much competition due to covid and daughters illness thst I am determined to run on the hard ground - we train on it anyway - I won't put studs in though
 
I think about all the pony club camps we did on rock hard ground... And we all survived.

I think w/ding from xc lessons a couple of weeks away is more careful than necessary. With young horses all the work over water/steps/ditches means you can do tonnes of useful work without needing to jump big on firm ground. Some rain now forecast next week too.

I am the lucky owner of a TB who doesn't move or jump big - who goes in deep mud and who goes on the firm. It's very practical! I am w/ding from Bradwall this weekend, but only because having discussed with instructor, his prep work for Chatsworth and Houghton is in place, all his prep runs have been good - at this point the risks outweigh the benefits to run again (we ran last weekend at Kelsall, so it would be fast going 2 weekends on the bounce). I've no doubt that Bradwall will do their best to produce safe going though - it's a fab event.
 
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