He is 100% right. Gone are the days where you could pay $100 for an entry. Eventing took awhile, but it’s catching up to H/J. Like the thoughts I posted on the “volunteering” thread, either commit to contributing to the solution or expected to pay more. Have to admit even some of the numbers in this article were surprising, $250,000 for a course design? Wow.
Probably over 20 years ago, one of my trainers hosted at the time USEA sanctioned events at her farm and even hearing her stories from back then and how difficult they were, makes me wonder why anyone would sign up for it.
The article came out in March, and a thread was created about it then. I will “bump” that thread.
He makes some interesting observations. Especially about people once being grateful that a property owner would put the money, time and effort into building a course and hosting an event.
Our sport is dying in Bitish Columbia (far western Canada). Half of the members of Canadian teams at Championships for the past decades came from western Canada. In the 90s there were 10 different event sites spread through the province. We are down to 3, two on public lands.
The costs are incredible, and even upgrading safety equipment like MIM clips is over $500 per jump for the MIM hardware alone.
Jumps made of wood rot, so there is constant repair and replacement needed.
Volunteers get burnt out, and our geography means it can be hard to volunteer ahead of the event if you don’t live nearby. So much of the work is in the months and weeks before.
I’ve heard from multiple owners/former competition hosts that it’s too much work for them, with too little reward, not enough volunteers, and way too much disrespect from competitors (complaining, leaving litter, not obeying property rules etc.). They are also more concerned about liability.
I am sad that we may be losing our grassroots sport. Sure, we can drive 10-20 hours to a large established venue like Rebecca Farm or Galway Downs (and I’m grateful for those opportunities and amazing venues) but that’s not sustainable for bringing up riders and horses locally.
In our province, a lot of work’s been done to encourage eventing derbies. I think it’s perfect for grassroots, without a lot of costs and red tape associated with recognized events. But it doesn’t replace competitions needed to get qualifications and MERs.
I don’t have a suggestion or solution except to say anyone who loves and participates in the sport should volunteer, or we might not have a sport.
Here is a link to the other thread, for those that might want that.
Thank you @skydy for sharing the link to the actual COTH article, it was not in the other thread.
Eventing and maybe horse sports in general are more unique than other sports in how they govern. In baseball, football, basketball there are professionals and amateurs. Major league baseball doesn’t try to run amateur baseball. The NFL doesn’t run anything but the NFL.
Maybe it is time for eventing to have professionals and amateurs with two completely separate governing organizations.
I think the rules and regulations for the Olympic disciplines prevent that.
how? They wouldn’t have a say over an amateur organization.
First of all, both amateurs and professionals compete in th Olympics. In fact, not that long ago, ONLY amaters could compete in the Olympics.
Second, somewhere in the Olympic regulations it says that there can only be ONE “Ntional Federation” for each Olympic sport (e.g. “Equestrian” overall, not the seperate disciplines within it, such as Dressge, Eventing, Show Jumping.
Not that long ago there WAS a separate organization which dealt with eveything related to Equestrian Olympics, called the US Equestrian Team (owned most of the horses, hired the trainers, ran the training sessions, selected the team members, etc.). It was the then-new Olympic rule that forced the transfer of all those funtions to the then-AHSA, leaving the USET as a purely fundraising organization. (If you were not around for that epic battle, look it up)
Now, none of that prevents unrecognized individual competitions, or even series. But I think that having two nationwide organization, both having high level competitions, would risk having “Equestrian” dropped from the Olympics.
On top of that, the demands of the upper level amateurs are not that different from the demands of the professionals. It is the demads of the competitors that generate the bulk of the issues in Denis’s article.
Ok I wasn’t saying ammies can’t ride UL levels or implying they don’t LOL I was using that term loosely to describe what the poster suggested.
When they say there can only be one organization that just means one that feeds into Internationally recognized events. One recognized by the IOC
In the UK there are several eventing associations not just British Eventing. They have Riding Club, Pony Club and some others that run events that are not BE accredited. They have the biggest entry pool of any nation.
Something similar can be done here.
My mind is still trying to wrap around the cost[s] associated with hiring a course designer. $250,000?! Where does that money come from? Even the lower ball park seemed like such a staggering number. I know our small events are not paying that figure but this makes me even more grateful for our ‘in house’ course designer - yeesh.
Time for a career change 
(joking)
I was wondering if it included the jumps costs?
The quote from the article is (bolding my own):
Course design and presentation are also very costly. Even when organizers design their own courses with some technical support from USEF, that can cost over $100,000. The course designers for the Maryland 5 Star at Fair Hill were paid $250,000. Plantation Field International course designers have ranged from a low of $60,000 to a high of $150,000.
Like @Jealoushe, I’m not sure if that $250k is what the course designers themselves were paid, or if that was the total cost for “course design and presentation”. Regardless, a huge number, and one we should be grateful event organizers are fronting.
Sponsors.
That is basically why the Red Hills Event closed down. When the USEF said they had to change the date for their 4* (which they could not do because the facility was not available on the date the USEF wanted), they nominally could have run the other divisions on their available date. But without the sponsorship directly tied to the 4*, they could not afford to run the other levels.
USA Basketball is the governing organization for men’s olympic basketball. The NBA governs the professional league.
As I have said many times, the IOC is, and with concurrence of the USEA/USEF, is killing eventing. Time to get out of the Olympics and reclaim the sport.
@Janet posted the link on the old thread so now there are two active threads about the same subject.
Yeah - look at the Cotswold Cup (among many unaffiliated series in the UK that are hugely popular) - with a £17,500 ($22,475) prize pot for seniors alone at their championship event for 80cm, 90cm and 100cm divisions, paying cash prizes down to 10th. And the qualifiers at least cost under £100 to enter without extra costs like stabling, shavings etc as they’re one days, unlike a (western) US event that takes three or four days with travel and $600 plus hotels, gas, food… but I digress into a grumpy rant…
If only the US had the entry pool to support this relatively inexpensive type of grass roots series… but we don’t because we’re pricing ourselves out by demanding fancier and fancier events… schooling days tacked on with their associated fees… plastic flowers everywhere…
Meanwhile I pay close to $1000 for a weekend at an event and come away with a plastic hoofpick and a handful of candy if I come 3rd. 🫠
in eventing the amateur rule doesn’t really come in to play very often unless there is a specific amateur division or adult team.
I thought the article was really on point. The goal of USEF should be to try to help organizers succeed in their events. They cannot run events year after year at a loss. I hope USEF reads the article several times over - listen to organizers concerns and ideas and take them to heart.
@Xanthoria The various unaffiliated series, such as the Cotswold Cup, have grown significantly in the past five years or so and obviously do fill a need but - the significant but - they also run on the back of British Eventing. Their competition rules, the course design, fence safety, the provision of medical cover, everything about the unaffiliated events is based on British Eventing and just re-branded. So much as every one complains about BE, BE remains the gold standard. There are lessons to be learned by BE and I’m not to sure they have yet been understood.
