I read COTH as I am always fascinated by other systems in eventing and as with anything with horses there are many ways to get a job done. Having just read the trainer post I thought I would just add a British perspective on eventing and costs.
I event at 2* level. I have one at that level (this is mine), one at training, nearly ready for prelim and a 5yo who has been incredibly slow to mature so is just mainly hacking and doing bits and bobs. The last two are owned by my yard owner. I work full time so horses are squeezed round work. I get 32 days holiday a year and carried 9 over this year in case I was going to do CCI2*. Most of my days off go on horses. My background is i have ridden since a kid but it was very much a hunting background. As an adult I am basically living my dream of being able to event, as barely did any as a child. Everything is run on a shoestring. I donāt have expensive horses and tend to make them myself. No Cooley horses here!
My horse lives at a livery yard which has 15 horses on it - I am very lucky as donāt pay any boarding fee as I ride the owners horses for free. I just pay for everything else such as hay and straw. Hay is around Ā£30 a bale and straw is up and down on price so about Ā£35 a bale. I pay Ā£77 for a set of shoes, Ā£35 + whatever else on top for a vet visit and Ā£50 for teeth. My chiro for the horse is Ā£55. My horse is on DIY but I am lucky to have an amazing support system with friends so we share workload. I help them out (rebacking a 4yo, schooling horses etc) and they help me out.
I have two vet students who go to a local vet college who ride out for me during the week so that I can then concentrate on the schooling work with my limited time. They have been amazing and have just qualified so I will need to find some more. In return I book lessons with trainers for them and will let them jump the horses under my supervision. I am a qualified trainer, but I much prefer riding to teaching so tend to avoid it.
I have 4 trainers who I see pretty regularly. I train with a top class British Team coach roughly once a month which is Ā£50 for 1 hour in a pair. I tend to organise these clinics as this trainer lives 3 hours away so in order to get them in the area I make sure they have enough people to earn the money to justify the trip. I then have a local 5* rider who is a qualifed coach who is Ā£40 an hour. I see them the most for flat and jump. They are about 25 mins from me. Finally I have a guy who I see sporadically but who I love, if he is in the area I will try and go and see him as very much focused on biomechanics, he is Ā£60 an hour. I also have a specialist SJ coach who I will try and see for course jumping. They are Ā£35 an hour. All these coaches are qualifed, insured, safeguarding trained and first aid trained. I probably see a trainer every fortnight. They would never come to events with me and we tend to watch video that I have taken at events to look at mistakes from the event and moving forward. I am also a member of a RC so will attend local lessons as they use the trainers I use. I tend to be super fussy who I will share with as the biggest issue is my idea of jumping 1m is that you are competing at that height, not using the whole lesson to maybe do it right at the end or if I am on a young horse I might only be doing 70/80cm but could be paired with someone having real issues. The main reason for doing it is costs.
We are lucky locally that we have a very solid unaffiliated circuit run at BE locations. These are run by PC and RC. Though there is now a professional set up running a lot called Horse Events. They run unaff at BE standards. I tend to start everything at unaff as I know the locations well and its pretty consistent. They will then tend to do 80cm, 90cm and a few 100cm all at unaff before I would look to join BE with the expectation that they are nearly ready for prelim. Costs for unaff is Ā£45-75. Sometimes there is a start fee as well which will be Ā£10. Why do I do it? no membership costs of registering the horse in case it doesnāt like eventing and no record of its results. The pay off is results tend to be slow and sometimes the dressage judging can be interesting.
My membership costs for BE are Ā£150. The horse is roughly Ā£80 for the year which isnt actually a year as we only run March to October. Entries are around Ā£80-110 for a prelim at BE with an additional start fee of Ā£10-20 to pay on top. That would be my only costs to pay. We dont have trailer fees and we very rarely stable as we get it done in one day. Sometimes you can volunteer for day before dressage but we tend to only do that if the event is very local. We have 35 in a section at BE and we have no distinction for amatuers or pros. Those riders who have been advanced have to go HC in 90cm and under unless they do an open 90cm. Horses can be downgraded for the lower levels to go in restricted classes like 80/90/100 where you cannot have any points. Points are only accumulated at prelim and above. A downgraded horse cannot be eligible for grassroots championships though where you cannot have any points and the rider cannot have competed at intermediate and above in last 10 years.
In the UK, we go out and compete a fair amount outside of eventing. We have both affilated and unaffiliated showjumping (hunter/jumper). Most unaff only goes to 1m though so you tend to need to join British Showjumping if you want to practice competing at bigger heights. This is similar cost to BE at Ā£130 for rider and Ā£80 for horse. We donāt really have training shows as so much course hire at equestrian centres available. They tend to leave a course up and you book the arena for an hour. Cost is usually about Ā£30 so I tend to share with a friend. Cost of an unaff class is around Ā£10 and cost of a BS class is Ā£22 (though you can win money).
I live in a good location and have 10 equestrian centres within 1 hour. 5 of those have indoor schools to hire, though realistically only 3 are suitable for jumping bigger courses as either a bit small or dont have a great surface. I have 60 BE events within 2 hours. I have 5 xc courses that I can hire within 1 hour.
We would also do some dressage competitions. Round here I can do up to Medium level unaff so I havent needed to join British Dressage. Costs are Ā£12 unaff and Ā£20 per class at BD.
Eventing for me is 100% about slowly progressing and being social. I only really go to events if friends are going. Nothing is better than surviving the day and sitting down and having a gin and tonic all together. I have a massive support network of friends. We will all help each other out. I will go to an event with them if I am not competing and groom for them and they will do the same for me. We all know each other very well, will share lessons, go and hire courses together etc. I guess you all go with Barns? We just donāt have that set up here. My partner is totally non horsey so I donāt take him with me. With my friends we probably do at least one stay away show all together so we can properly drink and socialise! Last year I went to Bicton to improve my showjumping and cost was around Ā£250 for 3 days stabling, 6 showjumping classes, my food and horses food.
Hope that hasnāt bored you too much!
