Tweseldown BE - ground?

Saratoga

Saratoga

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Are they likely to have done any work on the ground for the dressage and show jumping this weekend? Does the sand get particularly deep on the XC if we haven't had any rain?
 
The ground is usually ok for the dressage and SJ as it is still on semi sandy going. They normally move the SJ so its on the same side of the road as the XC so will have a bit more give in it. I've found that the ground normally rides better in the summer when its been a bit drier.
 
Ground is pretty great at tweseldown all year round (ie. if you wont run there with no rain, you probably won't run anywhere!) however word of warning, watch the sand getting bottomless on take off and landings of xc fences when there's been no rain and you're near the end of the day of competition, i had a crashing horse fall at the spring BE event which according to eye witnesses (including jump judges) was caused by the very deep fluffy take off ground. having said that, hasn't put me off going back as will be there on saturday :)
 
I am there on Saturday too. I am usually over cautious about the ground but I have decided if I can't run at Tweseldown, then I can't run anywhere!

Having said that, one of my horses absolutely hates the xc going there. The only cross country faults he has had have been there. When we have had a dry spell it does get very deep in places meaning you are jumping out of a good few inches of sand which adds to the height of the fences. And the courses can be up to height too so I guess it depends on your horse. If it likes the top of the going then it won't like a dry Tweseldown!

The SJ is usually on the same side of the road as the cross country for the affiliated events which makes a huge difference as the grass cover is much better.

Good luck if you decide to run!
 
Should be fine - sand can sometimes get a bit deep towards the end of the day, but generally safe and jumpable.

We're fence judging there on Sat and Sun, we rake take off and landing every 7 horses (1 score sheet = 7 horses so it's a good way to remember to do it!) to try to ensure the ground remains constant through the day. I know many of the other FJ's will be doing the same.

Say hello if you're passing - we're in a big blue 4x4 and have a black and tan terrier who likes to be centre of attention!
 
Say hello if you're passing - we're in a big blue 4x4 and have a black and tan terrier who likes to be centre of attention!
Click to expand...

I'm scheduled very first to go XC on saturday so will try to make it safely over your fence :D
 
As others have said not too bad but can get a bit deep. Like Rana when we fence judge there we rake often.
Rana competing on Sunday will
come and say high when course walking if you're not too busy. I know you do lots of volunteering, so thanks! :)
 
hopefully i'll be going too fast to say hello lol! I am about 15th to go on Sunday. Xc time of 10am. Will try not to cause you any difficulties lol! Sand there can def get very deep in the centre of the fences which adds a good few inches to the height of them! Wouldn't worry about the dressage/SJ - enough give in the sandy ground. Given XC is normally up to height cant say I'm looking forward to doing it with an extra few inches from deep sand. Hopefully hunting all winter has got pony used enough to jumping out of bogs to be ok.
 
Will be good to see you all. Please no one fall off at our fence, I am sick to death of fall report forms!

Between fence judging, timekeeping, and competing my dog at flyball, I've worked out we don't have a free weekend til the end of October. Keeps me busy, sadly I lost my old horse a month ago so need to keep myself occupied.

Sorry for the lack of smileys, technlogy has defeated me. I'm not as grumpy as my post sounds, honest lol
 
Was anyone else disappointed with the ground at Tweseldown? Having paid £15 start fee I was disappointed to find no work had been done to the ground at all. The dressage warm up was like concrete, as was the SJ warm up. Arenas a little better due to grass cover, but the XC was deep sand in places (mainly take offs and landings) and hard dirt in others.
 
Quite agree with your disappointment about the ground. We were there on the Friday, and they had done nothing at all that we could see. Comparing the £15 start fee for that with fee at Hambledon (less than that I think?) where they had watered endlessly and tried so hard. Would definitely not go to Tweseldown if it wasnt so close, and if the XC wasnt on sand which they dont need to prepare. My partner said they hadnt even changed the course from the earlier event - flags all looked as if they were in the same place!
 
Agree with you both and have filled in an ERA event feedback form with words to that effect. I was very disappointed about the BE100 xc ground especially and I was only 2nd to go XC so if ground was going to be perfect it should have been then.
 
The problem at Tweseldown is that they are really limited in what they are allowed to do because it is a SSSI in unfavourable recovering condition. As I heard it, Natural England tried to stop the eventing entirely a few years ago, and they are now bound by management prescriptions which they cannot break. I heard that they have to do quite a lot to the site as a whole just to be allowed to run any eventing there at all, which presumably costs £££.
 
Do you know what they have to do to the site? Because there is no evidence anywhere that there is any maintenance going on.
 
I seem to remember hearing that they can't use an agrivator at Tweseldown, because it simply shakes the sand off the grass roots, & then all the grass dies, leaving one in a worse situation than before where there is grass cover.

I also think that the site maintainance is to do with creating a heathland environment, in which the horse trials are allowed to happen, but under strict restrictions.

So I suspect that all they are allowed to do is level the tracks, but with the sand so dry, that is never going to create a consistant surface without plenty of rain, trying to apply enough water by bowsers would be impossible!.
 
Ditto the disappointment. SJ was concrete :( and while they'd spiked the meadow pre-ditch / water, the top of the hill was concrete :(. Makes me feel a bit better about collecting a TP or two... ERA feedback here I come!
 
I don't I'm afraid Saratoga, I can have a go at finding out though, shouldn't be too hard, the info on the management plan should be online.

I'm pretty sure they're not allowed to agrivate, and I suspect there are restrictions on watering as heathland is a dry habitat. I would imagine they have to do a lot of scrub management and invasive weed control to keep the heathland plants dominant.
 
Ok, so I can't copy it, but if you have a look at:

http://www.sssi.naturalengland.org.uk/Special/sssi/sssi_details.cfm?sssi_id=1006761 and then click on 'operations requiring Natural England's consent', you'll see basically anything which would be conducive to improving the ground for eventing, requires written permission from NE.

Now NE are an unwieldy organisation at the best of times, but at the moment they are a complete nightmare to deal with, because of the budget cuts (I have just finished a contract with them). One of the offices, which all the staff in the area were relocated to in Jan, still has no colour printing facility, and even better, when anyone does try and colour print, all the NE computers in the building crash. So given that eventing requires reasonably last minute (in terms of a week or two before the event) decisions on how to improve the ground to run, and given that Tweseldown would need written permission from NE to do most of those things, the chances of the two colliding, and anyone at NE having the time or inclination to turn things around that quickly, especially since the entire organisation was reorganised at the start of April and people were shifted into new jobs, is about as likely as me finding the winning lottery ticket on the street tonight - possible, but it ain't realistically going to happen (unfortunately!).

This is further compounded by the fact that NE legally have 4 months in which to decide whether or not to grant consent for operations to take place - so realistically, the organisers would have had to decide in January that the ground would need work, write to NE to ask permission, and if they were lucky, they would get consent at the start of May - it's just not possible to run a horse trials with that kind of crystal ball gazing requirement.

The legal powers which NE have to serve enforcement on landowners is pretty extensive, if they are willfully ignoring the management prescriptions, or if they carry out works without consent. They can prosecute the landowner in the Magistrate's Court, where a maximum fine of £20K can be imposed (plus costs) or they can (if serious enough) ask the magistrate to refer the case to the Crown Court, where the fine is unlimited!

The owners of Tweseldown are legally obliged to try and bring the site back into favourable condition (it's currently unfavourable recovering) and so they have to follow management guidance from NE to do this - so your start fee may well be going on simply managing the site the way NE want, in order for them to keep allowing any eventing at all, rather than being able to be used to improve the ground. Make no mistake, if NE think eventing is proving too damaging, and the management isn't helping the site to move from unfavourable recovering to favourable, then they will stop Tweseldown running any events in the future. So for the sake of a fiver, you could lose the venue completely. NE (from what I heard internally), took a LOT of persuading to allow eventing to continue at all there...

Hope no-one thinks I am having a go at them - there's no way the average eventer would know all this, I just happen to work in the industry. I just wanted to help people understand why the ground may not be great at Tweseldown despite the higher start fee.
 
i fully hear what youre saying but surely then it is a vicious circle. nobody is 100% happy, i certainly wasnt last year, and didnt make the trek down this year. in a way, if natural england are really clever, they wont need to say no eventing. by putting the restrictions down about ground preparation, they then will eventually create a venue few people want to compete at, then losing the event entirely, and nobody can immediately point the finger to natural england, as, like you say, the eventer isnt to know the goings on of the land management. as far as we care, thats down to the organisers, not natural england....
 
I think NE are aware that closing eventing down entirely is shooting themselves in the foot - because if the site is not making money, no-one will manage it at all, and then they will have to take enforcement action.

It is a difficult situation, not at all cut and dried. I would imagine that is part of the reason Tweseldown have started the unaff events too - entry fee the same as BE but no cut to BE so more money for them, and no official route for anyone to complain about the ground!

It's honestly not at all black and white, and my experience of NE is that they would rather a site was a going concern (as then someone has a vested interest in it being managed correctly), but they really did not understand how to balance the requirements of eventing with the requirements of the site.

What they all need to do, clearly, is employ me (via my consultancy), who both events and is an ecologist with a good knowledge of heathland management and an MSc in Restoration Ecology, because I can understand both sides ;) Obviously that isn't going to happen, sadly, I think it would be a really interesting site to work on!
 
you dont know unless you ask! may be worth approaching ne with these posts and saying look, youll lose the income from eventing entirely if you dont look at it a bit differently. employ me and everyone will be happy! could work ; -)
 
fortunately we had some quite heavy rain early Sunday morning. I actually found the dressage and SJing warmups ok - the rain had loosened the sand a bit in the SJing warmup and it was like riding in the normal sandpit I'm used to living in these parts. I was early to go in the SJing and thought most of it was very good - there weren't any really deep bits before the fences and they'd planned the route to avoid the hard bits. I got a shed load of time faults because it's so bloody twisty turny there but it wasn't due to me going slow coz of the ground. Watering doesn't work on sand - it just runs straight through it, agrivating just breaks it all up - grass only lays v shallow roots on sand so disturb it at all and it disintegrates - i know, my field is on sand and galloping horses shreds it!
 
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