What do you look for in a schooling show? We’ve talked a tiny bit about hosting one at our barn but is there anything that would make one special for you?
sounds like a great idea!! For our local GMO group, we look for good footing, and enough day stalls. What I liked about our last schooling show was the bake sale. Also its is appreciated if there is a nice lunch available to buy.
A real judge, not just a local trainer who steps up.
Decent footing and a safe warm up area.
An area to lunge if necessary.
If you only have room for one arena, you might consider having an “opening date” as well as a closing date, and cutting off entries when you reach a full day in the arena.
Timely calculating of scores and pinning of classes.
Separating out AA/JrYR and Open rider for ribbons. Nice awards (gift cards are an easy option)
Fun!!
Is it possible to make any money on a schooling show? There aren’t a lot in our area, and only a few of those are in a nice arena instead of out in a field. Our barn has a nice outdoor, and a small indoor. i think the ones that there are (affiliated with a local organization, which we would probably do) charge $25 a test. Our stalls would be limited.
we do make money with the schooling shows. And we do not rent out the stalls. The facility which we rent for the show does that. We do charge a little office fee though as well.
The ones around here seem to do very well. I agree that having a good judge and good arena and warmup footing are really important. For me, the other two biggies are good safe trailer parking area and reasonable, flexible times.
A lot of the shows locally have switched from doing classes to doing the Danish system of pinning, which means that tests can be done in any order and time requests can easily be accommodated. Plus there’s very little waiting around-- usually by the time I’ve untacked and cooled out my horse my tests are scored and ready-- and pretty much everyone gets a ribbon, which is nice.
Agree with the comments - good footing AND easy trailer parking. A separate area for lunging - HATE trying to ride in arenas with horses lunging - it just isn’t safe. For me, schooling shows are to get my youngsters out, but we have several series that attract a huge following. So, some things they offer that people appreciate:
Separate lunge round pen. Covered warm up, then a 2nd warm up that is outside near the show court. They allow the horses to go there about 10 minutes before their ride - so there is never more then 2 horses in that ring. It gives the horses a chance to SEE the ring they’ll be showing in, and takes some “pressure” off the covered warm up.
They also offer high point prizes for the day and for the year - and people really love to win those prizes.
All their judges are Ls. Every once in a while, they will use a local trainer as a back up (if they have to run a 2nd ring for part of the day), and people are not as happy with the judging then.
Yes, they make money. As long as you don’t have to pay a fortune to rent a ring, and you get enough volunteers, AND enough entries, you should be able to make money. Our schooling shows in the area charge $25 to $35/class. Some charge an office fee, and that pays for a show manager. Biggest expenses are judge, TD (if required for insurance), and arena rental. Then you have ribbons, printing of tests, prizes, food for volunteers.
We just ran a schooling show last weekend and made around $700.
Judge (local ‘r’) was $400, ribbons and prizes (everyone gets a ribbon,
we award big champ and reserves for each division and give a small
prize in every class) were around $250, printing mailing copying advertisements
were another $50 pizzas and drinks for the volunteers lunch was $100.
Everyone had a great time. 55 rides at $30 apiece including western and
intro levels. Insurance rider was $40. Didn’t need a portapottie.
We have great footing both indoors and out and plenty of parking.
Enough room for parking and warm up areas and footing that can handle the weather. If you aren’t going to cancel your show for rain, you’d better make sure the footing will hold up for all day schooling.
Making money depends on whether the show fills. 40 rides is an easy day (one ride every 10 minutes, 7 hours of show, 1 hour lunch). So that is $1000. I think we pay $350 for an “L” judge, and $200 or so for ribbons. So if you don’t have to pay much for the arena. You can definitely make a profit if the show fills. It really helps if you plan to put on a few shows. For the first one, you have to buy a lot of everything to make sure you don’t run out. After that, you start to build up a supply and just fill in what you are low on.
Scheduling is often a big issue – do your best to coordinate with other clubs because confilcing with another event can really kill your participation. Often people involved with on group (pony club, dressage, eventing, 4-H, recognized shows, etc) are not aware enough about the schedules of other local groups. You also need to be realistic about whether there is a demand in your area, or if there are already too many schooling shows.
Also, the local dressage “culture” can have a big impact. North of me, there is a club where the schooling shows have evolved to become very popular. The people who usually go have gotten very friendly, there is a lot of comraderie. Some people find it more worthwhile to hang out with the friends at the schooling show than to spend lots of money and travel to the big expensive regocnized shows, and there are local trainers who encourage that. In other areas, there is a collection of riders and trainers who use the occasional schooling show only to get ready for the recognized shows, and you are a nobody if you don’t go to the recognized shows (although many of the horses an riders aren’t any better than the ones up north at the schooling show.)
[QUOTE=Highflyer;8642174]
A lot of the shows locally have switched from doing classes to doing the Danish system of pinning, which means that tests can be done in any order and time requests can easily be accommodated. Plus there’s very little waiting around-- usually by the time I’ve untacked and cooled out my horse my tests are scored and ready-- and pretty much everyone gets a ribbon, which is nice.[/QUOTE]
Yes! I love this. I hate waiting around on my score sheet (and occasional ribbon lol!). But they still post the scores so you can see how you measured up against others.
Also, Plantation Field, one of our eventing venues, does online sign-up for times at their dressage schooling shows, which is handy. They don’t even give ribbons, which is fine with me and the mostly eventing crowd that they cater to (although I realize this would not be popular). I do wish they would post scores, though, because often times you don’t know if a judge is extra generous or stingy in their scoring, so you don’t know how to evaluate your feedback.
I run the local GMO schooling shows and they do very well and most are filled with a waiting list. The key for us is picking good dates (try to minimize conflict with other local events, and being right before local recognized shows can boost entries), decent venues (good footing for show and warm-up and indoor show ring option if weather might be questionable) and, perhaps more importantly for long term success, shows that run on time!
In our experience, schooling show judges (we mostly use L judges and they are great and we try to minimize expenses by using local judges when we can and hosting them at member’s homes instead of paying for hotels, when practical) take a little more time on their comments (which is much appreciated by the competitors), but if you don’t allow a little extra time for each test, you will quickly get miles behind and that makes competitors unhappy. Also, especially at the lower levels, you are likely to have more off course errors and other problems, so schedule longer breaks (15 minutes AM and PM, plus 1 hour lunch) so you can catch up if needed.
Scheduling flexibility is also a big bonus for many competitors and I second the suggestion of a nice lunch (or at minimum a food truck!) being available for purchase.
We charge $20/test for members and $35 for non-members plus $5 office fee and $10 facility fee (we don’t own any of our venues, so this basically just pays venue fees). Availability of day stalls is also a big advantage if possible and they can make money too if you own the facility - we charge $25/day stall and $35/overnight stall. Another local schooling dressage show (not run by a GMO) charges $30/test, $10 haul-in fee, and doesn’t have any stabling but still seems to do pretty well.
I like a variety of choices for fence height in the jumping classes. Separate divisions for children/adults. Equitation classes (flat and over fences). I also like variety such as trail classes (which would require a different judge/arena and probably wouldn’t have many entries from the english crowd- but might if you have western classes. I sure wish we had a local schooling show series where I live.
[QUOTE=rjr;8642797]
Making money depends on whether the show fills. 40 rides is an easy day (one ride every 10 minutes, 7 hours of show, 1 hour lunch). So that is $1000. I think we pay $350 for an “L” judge, and $200 or so for ribbons. So if you don’t have to pay much for the arena. You can definitely make a profit if the show fills. It really helps if you plan to put on a few shows. For the first one, you have to buy a lot of everything to make sure you don’t run out. After that, you start to build up a supply and just fill in what you are low on.
Scheduling is often a big issue – do your best to coordinate with other clubs because confilcing with another event can really kill your participation. Often people involved with on group (pony club, dressage, eventing, 4-H, recognized shows, etc) are not aware enough about the schedules of other local groups. You also need to be realistic about whether there is a demand in your area, or if there are already too many schooling shows.
Also, the local dressage “culture” can have a big impact. North of me, there is a club where the schooling shows have evolved to become very popular. The people who usually go have gotten very friendly, there is a lot of comraderie. Some people find it more worthwhile to hang out with the friends at the schooling show than to spend lots of money and travel to the big expensive regocnized shows, and there are local trainers who encourage that. In other areas, there is a collection of riders and trainers who use the occasional schooling show only to get ready for the recognized shows, and you are a nobody if you don’t go to the recognized shows (although many of the horses an riders aren’t any better than the ones up north at the schooling show.)[/QUOTE]
Same thing in my area. There is at least one dressage schooling show that runs monthly during the summer, and it is very popular. It’s run out of a training barn, so they wouldn’t be paying money for facility rental, and I am sure it is a help to their finances. The coaches and trainers involved with this particular series don’t even go to rated shows anymore, or take their students there, as far as I can tell.
If you run a series of schooling shows, you can have your own high-point end of year awards, as well as high point per show.
Also, all open flat/hack classes (meaning not in a breed show) around here are schooling shows, and well attended.
My guess is if you do it regularly, have a good location, run it in a professional but not formal or uptight way, there is a market for these and they will bring in some income for your club or barn.
My favorite schooling show charges $25 per class and a $25 office fee…if your entry is perfect you get a $5 bill back when you pick up your bridle number.
