I really had no idea. Wow.
@Willesdon you commented on Cotswold Cup too. Tell me more! What things is BE doing that make them the gold standard? (Genuine question - I have very little experience across the pond).
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Depends what you mean by āgold standardā? If you mean the standard by which quality was originally defined then absolutely yes. If you mean the best available, it seems the customer base may not agree as evidenced by the popularity of the Cotswold Cup?
That series improved on the BE model to the point that people are spending their money there instead.
I know there are lots of lower quality unaffiliated events too, and theyāre not much competition for BE. But having been the originator of the event format is of course not a reason for BE to rest on their laurels.
I wonder what BE thinks of these new series and their impact on their business. Do you have any insight?
@beowulf and @Xanthoria British Eventing have developed the sport over the decades in so many ways: developing frangible pins, analysing and publishing annual safety data, doing basic research e.g. currently on flags being taken down at any fence (before FEI changes itās flag penalties), training officials and volunteers, developing mechanical techniques for ground preparation, developing safer fences such a pinning for portable, even the basic organisational model of an event such as the maximum numbers in a section, runners in a day, number of horses a rider may compete in a day (five), the requirement to be able to get an ambulance to any fence within two minutesā¦ All the hidden things that competitors are totally unaware of because they just expect an individual event or the whole season to run like clockwork despite the weather, pandemic, strong personalities and other variables. That is why the BE rule book, training programmes and even organisational skills are a Gold Standard adopted by many other nations.
One well known organiser and course designer was in Zambia on an FEI development visit. He asked how the local body developed itās rule book. āWe take the British Eventing one and just replace āBritishā with āZambianā all the way throughā. That season, several unaffilliated events were running under āZambian rulesā.
The problems arise when members feel HQ has become unresponsive, when communication breaks down, when cliques develop within the organisation, which play out in allocation of dates for shows, or there is personal antagonism in different places such as between BE and Event Organisers. BE is constantly trying to balance the needs of opinionated and vocal factions, between professionals and grassroots, between Scotland and the rest of the UK (Northern Ireland is part of the Republic for Eventing) etc etc. It is however, a membership organisation largely run by elected volunteers and a tiny staff of paid officials. Members constantly complain of high costs but they have absolutely no idea of the actual cost of running an event. BE imposes regulations on show organisers, demand certain things are in place and takes chunks of money from them for obscure purposes, which is not popular at any time. But BE, as an organisation, can be really rigid and unresponsive to perfectly reasonable suggestions from other parties involved. Arrogance or stubbornness is never a good look. The members voted to remove compulsory insurance premiums to make their membership cheaper so Event Organisers had to find their own insurence and - Whoopsy - several longstanding events stopped because the cost of cancellation insurance was too high. That has smoothed out slightly with a new central fund but it is certainly one factor behind organisers going unaffilliated.
Then recently we have had the total absurdity of International Events not being permitted to run unaffilliated competitions at other times during the season. This, I believe, came down from the FEI (which was trying to preserve important international showjumping series from big money alternative shows and it applied the same rule across all the disciplines) but BE badly messed up the communication, making it look stupid, and so it promptly became a target for many, many people. Professional Event riders want bigger prize money (the prize money is laughable) but this is them making demands with no thought as where this money will come from. Big name sponsors are few and media rights have limited value as Eventing is not easy to place in a mass viewing market. It is amateurs and endless volunteer labour that keeps the sport going. Events will run 280 horses each day, often over several consecutive days of various sections, giving an appearance of popularity, success and profit. But very few Events make money, given the high costs. Frangible pins and clips are Ā£Ā£Ā£ for each pair (BE lend them out to organisers). Watering and other course prep can be in the Ā£ thousands, building jumps is Ā£Ā£Ā£ for even simple ones, but then everyone likes the fake flowers and chainsaw art to decorate the course, which all cost. The show comms are all hired in. The land will need to be repaired after so many horses and horse boxes have chewed up the ground. And many landowners and estates have to charge rent for use of the site - though many others are insanely generous because they love the sport and donāt charge. One hidden cost is that livestock has to be removed from the pasture for several days before an event so there are no cow pats or piles of sheep droppings in the grass! There is a longstanding tradition of events on large estates, Badminton and Burghley being the most famous, and that support underpins much of the seasonal calendars.
Unaffilliated Events used to be very variable in organisation and sometimes downright dangerous in their standards but a few entrepreneurial people decided to set up new shows, outside the constraints imposed by BE, to offer lower levels of competition such as 70cm courses. The difference between The Cotswold Cup and British Eventing is almost undetectable because the same officials and volunteers do both. The unaffilliated series are generally more user-friendly with, for example, entries made later, refunds for cancellation quicker and entry fees are lower (no HQ staff, no cancellation fund, no free training for officials and volunteers, no research to pay for, no affiliation fees for the British Equestrian Federation) and riders donāt have to have BE membership or pay BE registration fees for their horses. I suspect unaffilliated organisers also have a better understanding of ICT. British Eventing has has a miserable time over several years with a disastrous and hugely expensive new computer system that did not work and frustrated everyone. BE has plenty to learn from the unaffilliated competitions and there are now a few signs appearing that suggest some changes are already happening.
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I donāt think all the issues could have been laid out more clearly except for the additional aspect of the US geography. The US west and the US east could not be farther apart. The championships are in Galway next year and the freaking OLYMPICS are here in 2028- I watched the ānational
ā championship last fall and it was SAD. Maybe 15 entries, several riders with multiple horses and it was a bloodbath.
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Well its been a bit an dI see the old gang is still around 
I read the article and I read through the comments and something that stood out for me was commenters missed a salient aspect to the article, the author was mainly an mostly talking about top end, recognized events.
"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. "
As one example. Many of the examples constantly reflected the top end of the sport and though I have no real disagreement with the position, does it really address the grass roots of the sport.
Is a starter, BN, Novice rider really worried about footing done by CMP or are they happy to get around a course. Are the worried about frangible pins and all the other safety features only found at (maybe) training ands above?
When you look at entries at an event, not just a limited * event what is the percentage of entries below Prelim vs Prelim and above then lets ask, who is paying for much of the expensive stuff that for them, is not important.
What would have been interesting is to apply the authorās question to the mass majority of amateurs that go to shows. Just for a moment, letās exclude the pros bringing strings that they are training through. What matters to them?
When I competed my top most concern was, is this course fair, tough I donāt mind, but fair test od my horse and me. When I competed at Wind Ridge the stadium was on grass with terrain andā¦ I loved it. It was a fantastic challenge compared to a flat expensively groomed arena. Same with Pine Top.
Starters are thrilled to get over logs, hell, as novice rider I was not as focused on a fancy fence, but how did it ride so perhaps we can ask, do we really need to spend so much when it is not needed but for the few.
I will actually agree that it would be almost impossible to form a new national association that focuses on just the lower levels Training and below, though it would not hurt for the non-destination venues to start looking at how they can organized and run more unrecognized events, keeping costs down and drawing in more Ammies.
Looking down the road, I donāt see the end of Eventing though I do see a change. there will be a point where those who love this sport more for the camaraderie and friendly competition among peers will split off from the pomp of USEA/USEF/FEI/Olympics and rebuild a new grassroots organization that may not be recognized by FEI/IOC et al, and that will be just fine. People will come, they will compete and have fun.
I guess weāll see, but consider this, why is the US constantly handed our asses in the Olympics, World Games and Top events? perhaps because Eventing has become so exclusive in the US that no real new blood can get a startā¦they are priced out from the beginning.
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The statistic I remember was that 80% of the starters were at Training or below. But that was a few years ago, and it may be even higher since the introduction of Starter.
Fixed my typo
Oh I bet it is far more than 20%.
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I thought it was the other way around, not gonna lie!
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Britsh Eventing is kept going by the BE90 and particularly BE100 riders, by far the greatest number of participants. That is why there is now a championship for both levels and, next year, also BE80 one. The UK has the overwhelming advantage of being āsmall but perfectly formedā.
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A quick peek at a few results on startbox shows about 85+% of starters at T or below
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That would be my experience for my area. The opposite of that. I would say that the number is more than 80% of the riders are training and below.
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Yes, that was a typo. 80%
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It IS the other way round. sorry for my typo.
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I remember some years ago Denny wrote an article for COTH and, IIRC, said fewer than one percent of starters were advanced, about 3% intermediate, and 7% prelim. (This did not included starter or unrecognized competitions and was well before the days of modified.) So 90% were at training or below. I think 15% were at training level, making it 75% at novice or below.
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Janet is correct, except for the fact that RHHT was not given the 4* at all for the first year. We were smugly told that we needed to just āgo ahead and run it for one yearā and then the calendar would be changed after that. The powers-that-be never understood that we simply could not do that. We could not run at a loss for one year, and hope to make it up later. As RHHT was not run on a permanent facility, and instead in a City Park, we had to be able to raise enough sponsor money to run each and every year, as our expenses had to be paid every single year.
The arrogance of some of the riders was astonishing when they heard that we were going to have to cancel. One told me that it wasnāt necessary to bring in as much sponsorship money as the figure I quoted him, because that was āridiculous. You can just cut out the big sponsorship tent and run without some amenities and it will be fine.ā
Really? Iām the one with the budget in my hand, and Iām telling you I need someone to raise $500k for us to be able to run, and you want to argue about it? But, I shouldnāt have been surprised. It wasnāt the only time that ULR showed how out of touch they were with the difficulty involved in putting on an event like that.
In any event, we just could not take a risk that we would run the event severely in the red in the hopes that we could eventually get the levels back on the date that we needed to be able to work with the City. Even if we were financially set to take a loss, what happens when that sponsorship money goes elsewhere for a year and then we canāt get it back?
I still have people at work, and out in the community that approach me and tell me how sad it is that RHHT does not run anymore. For most of them, it is the only horse event theyād ever been to, and my 600+ volunteer force are (mostly!) all sad that the event is gone. It is sad for riders who miss out on the opportunity to compete in front of a crowd before they go the following month to Kentucky.
Denisā article touches on the bid process only a little, but I can tell you that from the inside, that was a mess. I hope theyāve made changes to it as it goes forward.
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Iām wondering if the $250,000 figure included things like paying the builders, not just the course designer. Did it include materials?
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Yes. For Plantation Field anyway, this number is inclusive of labor to build and materials for portables, new permanent features, footing maintenance, course design fee (which as a standalone is definitely no where near that five or six figure costs annually!), decorating, and officials/CD expenses to travel to the event multiple times throughout the year. Some years we have less to spend on all of these things, but the minimum building/labor costs + design fees are still low to mid five figures for an FEI event.
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Thanks, faybe. I wonder if the $250k for Maryland was the 1st year, building a course from scratch? That would make a lot of sense (or perhaps, itās not enough money to do what they did?).
His numbers reflect mine when I did the math ~12 years ago. I did not account for the P or above riders with multiple horses.
That wasnāt always the case:
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