Maybe it’s because I started out in the world of rodeo, but horses can be trained to tolerate some pretty amazing things when that’s the standard that is expected of them. Those roping and barrel and pickup horses at the Stampede? Unless it’s a very special young horse, it took some training and seasoning to teach them to focus on the job at hand instead of the crowd, flags, and noise. Crazier than any of the outdoor rodeos are places like Rodeo Houston and the National Finals Rodeo. The NFR arena is literally set on an indoor basketball court, with the audience lined right down to the edge of the arena and the arena entrance is through a narrow tunnel with bulls and other liveatock often penned nearby. Of course, some of those rodeo horses have cotton stuffed in their ears – but then I’d be wearing earplugs, too! Even at junior rodeos where teens might be bringing along greener horses, horses are just expected to be okay with loud metal roping dummies drug around by 4-wheelers and warming up in an area where bulls are shaking panels next door and the grand entry including dozens of horse loping around the ring with several full-size flags. It’s true that some horses never do get used to that atmosphere and stay “jackpot”, NBHA, etc horses where they can compete in quieter settings. There are also some pretty amazing Amish driving horses that remain reliable even when faced with heavy traffic, big trucks blowing tires, loose livestock, kids running around parking lots with balloons, and any other number of distractions. There are lots of other examples – horses have been ridden into battle for centuries, taught to tolerate mounted shooting, etc. If it was the direction chosen for the sport, I guess I’m not sure why jumpers couldn’t compete in the same conditions under which other horses perform their jobs. Sure, set guidelines for safety – no throwing things into the arena, certain practice areas and stables are off limits to the public for quiet time for the horses, maybe a “splash zone” for the first fews rows closest to the ring where large scary objects aren’t permitted immediately ringside. But just because it’s not easy or isn’t what we expect of our horses at this moment in time doesn’t mean it is impossible.
@CCook you are spot on and the hunters with their quiet audience (if you can call it that) have cotton in their ears too. Ya know just in case someone makes a loud noise while they are in the ring. It’s why this conversation doesn’t need to involve hunters.
Thanks, I tried to edit my post for a typo and it became unapproved? So maybe it’s not visible anymore.
A lot of show jumpers have ear plugs, and fei barns are closed to the public.
I guess my main point is, we need more permanent facilities with bars :lol::lol:
Yes we do!!! The amount of money I’ve spent buying people beer when I’ve fallen off.
We did this already, maybe 20 years ago? Everyone was supposed to ride in a polo rather than a jacket to make the sport look “more accessible”. And when that didn’t work, someone realized that when the riders are riding a $5,000,000 horse, replacing the $300 jacket with a $30 polo really wasn’t going to help much.
People get into horse sports because they like horses. Not because they like sports. They need access to the horses, not to the equipment. Our society is moving further and further away from horses. I’m not sure at this point if more publicity is worth the increased attention from our increasingly animal-rights heavy public, but that’s another debate. Public interest needs to start on a more local, smaller scale. If you get communities into closer reach of horses you can build from there. If you provide value to local sponsors you attract larger ones.
I love horses. I’ve been in horses for 40+ years. I’ve run barrels, done western pleasure, dressage, halter, obstacle courses… and I get hella bored watching hunters or jumpers after a few rounds 
it’s boring unless you’re passionate about it. I’d rather watch golf for 2 hours than jumping for 1 lol.
I don’t disagree that it isn’t possible, I just don’t see the point.
Most of the big ticketed shows sell out. The smaller shows don’t charge admission.
So what is the goal of having more spectators? The belief that more spectators = more sponsorship opportunities?
At what point have we succeeded? When the North American fan base has doubled? Tripled?
Do we realistically think that a sport so inaccessible to much of the population will become mainstream? That equestrian sport can realistically compete with sports like hockey, football, baseball and soccer?
I don’t think you get more people interested in the sport by focusing on spectators at mostly rural competitions. I think you do it at the grass roots level. Day camps, affordable lesson packages, etc.
Someone in Ontario is trying to start a charity to help get inner city kids from Toronto involved with horses. Denis Lynch has even volunteered to help out.
I think it’s wrong to place so much focus on the competition aspect. On the clothes we wear. On the elite.
Grow the sport by finding affordable, accessible ways for newcomers to fall in love with horses.
Okay now your just weird. I can’t even play golf without thinking what a waste of space for a good cross country course :lol: And I like playing golf.
Umm it’s needs to be affordable and accessible for rural and city kids. The focus on entire needs to go out the window by the hunter EQ crowd. They care way too much. I think it would do some good to get hunters back to the hunt field and jumpers are jumpers no matter the age.
Board and care for schoolies in lesson programs has become unaffordable. Makes the grass roots aspect harder to accomplish.
I was responding to your posts where you said that you were all for more fan engagement, just not if it made the sport dangerous or unfair. My point was that I don’t think there has to be that trade-off, even if we allow fan behavior to become less muted. Whether or not increased fan engagment is beneficial is another question.
I agree with you that changes must be made at the grassroots and that outfits, fan etiquette, etc are smaller issues compared to the sheer cost of horse sports. However, like it or not, the layman’s image of “the English world” is one of uptight, elite, expensive tedium. Proliferating that image isn’t exactly drawing outsiders to jumping, and at all levels what riders wear and spectators are expected to say and do does affect that image. As far as the benefit of making the sport’s image more down to earth and more fun, rodeos start become money makers for the clubs and organizations that produce them at a pretty low level. Plenty of organizations pay for their expenses by putting on 1-2 local, volunteer run events a year, charging $10-15 admission and having a food stand. And people come. They’re engaging, fun family activities complete with slushies, fried food and burgers, calcutta auctions, drill team performances, cowboy hats and colorful outfits, an announcer giving the backstory on contestants and events, activities and competitions for spectators’ kids, rodeo clowns performing, and loud raucous cheering. Money coming in from outside spectators at low levels is great because it allows riding and competition costs to stay lower for the participants at those grassroots levels. Plus, local barns get lesson students from kids who fall in love with horses at those rodeos. I can’t think of an equivalent local level money maker (where the income comes from outside of participants) – or introduction for non-horse people to see horses in action – in jumper events, even though I’d estimate that roping has about the same spectator interest level as jumping.
Programs like the one you mention in Toronto are wonderful and very important! Horse sports in general are on the decline as population rises and horse keeping costs skyrocket. In addition to the other reasons those outreach programs are good for our youth, they can help slow (or prevent?) the demise of horse sports – as affordable day camps, lesson packages, etc can do as well. But outsiders choosing to take advantage of those opportunities is directly affected by the sport’s image also.
Betting drives it, yes, but you can get Joe and Jane Average to watch and to take it (somewhat) more seriously for a couple other reasons: first is jockeys are taken seriously as PROFESSIONAL athletes. They are riding most of or all the card, they’re hired by owners, they get off and go on to the next horse. Sure, pro jumper riders do that in some cases, but the IMAGE is “snooty rich people cantering around on their expensive horses jumping over sticks” (or more incomprehensibly prancing around a little ring looking like they’re skipping.)
Another reason is related to why rodeos are fun (and not just the “someone could get hurt hur hur” suggestion it’s all rubbernecking.) Not only is it all mostly comprehensible and the work the HUMAN puts in is pretty obvious, but at the track and the rodeo both, the audience is there to HAVE FUN. There is shouting, cheering, frequently music at rodeos, in rodeo again the announcers will straight-up play to the crowd and try to get them engaged. People are actively encouraged to enjoy themselves as spectators.
Compare that to the hush-hush, sit quietly, clap politely atmosphere at an h/j show or dressage show. No one is encouraged to actively root for anyone, move from their seats, and unlike a race (where you have two minutes of action then a twenty-plus minute break) you’re supposed to do that for hours on end. Jumpers has the small advantage at least that you’re eventually rewarded with a relatively clear-cut winner that the audience can easily understand–fastest horse with fewest rails down wins. But it’s a long slow route to get there. And frankly even when you DO know what’s going on watching hunters or dressage as a spectator can be like watching paint dry and if you don’t know what’s going on (or even if you do) guessing how they came by the winner is obscure at best. Racing? Not generally hard to figure out first to the finish wins. Rodeo? Fastest one around three barrels, guy who stayed on 8 seconds (yes, there are bull and rider scores but they’re not particularly hard to figure out), etc.
The comparison with figure skating doesn’t really work, either–you don’t wear your costumes for practice, no, but unless you’re on a synchro team you don’t all show up wearing the same cut of clothing with the same limited range of colors as everyone else. And you change every time you change a program. COTH people might be able to readily glance at someone going around a course and think there’s a difference between THIS shade of blue and THAT on their jackets, but to the average casual viewer everybody looks alike.
So what do you propose? Changing the entire sport to cater to spectators?
At the end of the day if you go ask Average Joe in the city why he put his daughter in soccer instead of riding lessons he’s going to answer with “horses are expensive”.
And guess what? We can’t argue that. And unfortunately that’s only going to get worse. We’re losing the real estate that’s required to keep horses. Farms are being swallowed by cities and developers. In my township you need at least 5 acres to keep a backyard chicken, let alone a horse.
This is again why I think the focus on spectators and competitions is silly.
Especially during a pandemic. Spectators aren’t even allowed at Ontario shows right now. Luckily those venues will survive because their business model wasn’t built on selling tickets.
My trainer hosts two shows every summer. It’s far easier to seek out several sponsors then to try to make money selling tickets at the entrance, dealing with parking, having security or volunteers to help with crowds, etc. The sponsors are mutually beneficial, and do a great job of spreading the word. It still does the job of attracting a few new lesson and day camp kids. Attracting $$$ clients is done through word of mouth. At that level advertising and spectators at shows have very little to do with it.
It’s also important to remember that all sorts of sports are very regional. Rodeo is virtually non-existent in Ontario, so it’s laughable to say that rodeo is doing a better job of attracting people. Even racing in Ontario is hugely subsidized by betting and the provincial government here. There are only 15 tracks in the whole province, with racing a few times per week through the summer. Meanwhile you’ve got week long h/j shows running through that time, dressage and eventing most weekends, schooling shows every weekend.
With the thought that we need an audience comes lots of questions. Has the plus of an audience (lets say there is one) been weighed against the cost of having an audience. Not all rated shows are held in venues with a large bleacher set up. Insisting on catering to an audience will mean limiting the shows to places that can not only accommodate the audience watching but parking for those vehicles, toilet facilities for that many more people, food for that many more people… Oh the list goes on and on. That would be a pretty interesting math problem to figure out where the extra cost of having spectators equals out to the benefit of having them.
I personally have never noticed hunter/jumper shows to be all hush on the sidelines.
I grew up in the Midwest and we used to show at the MN State Fair; every summer there was a big show during the Fair. It was super fun, but all of the non-horse people wandering through the barns meant that there had to be someone in our area all the time. We had to make sure people weren’t feeding the horses random stuff or taking our things or trying to get into the stalls to put their kids on the horses. It was fun answering all of the questions and letting people pet the horses and such, but it was a bit much, especially when we were busy trying to get ready to go to the ring. I am pretty sure I don’t want that to be the sort of environment we are in every time I horse show.
Again, the stands are full at the biggest events in Europe and elsewhere, and they don’t have a circus-like atmosphere. Turning our shows into a rodeo isn’t something I’d want in the least.
But, really, what is the problem? We are talking about a lot of different things in this thread. Do we need more people watching or do we need to make it less expensive for people to show? The top levels are fine. There is no dearth of entries for WEC and WEF and so on. The lowest levels also seem to be fine; the local organization series, schooling shows, and other unrated events in my area are usually packed, albeit generally with endless 2’ hunter rounds. Just typing that made me bored. I’m not sure how increasing spectators would solve the issues of accessibility and cost…?
We have a rated show model that is expensive. Changing our clothes to get more people to watch (which isn’t going to work, anyway), doesn’t come near any sort of solution to that problem. How many people have been drawn into horses and then don’t go any farther because of the cost, even just to take lessons? If shows were cheaper it would certainly help out those who already ride but can’t afford to do the rateds all the time, which I would absolutely appreciate (along with ride times), but it isn’t going to magically transform horses as a whole into an affordable sport. Keeping a horse and never stepping foot on a show grounds costs more money and time than most people would consider worth it.
I agree with most of the above, except I think more people own horses than show horses.
I forgot to say earlier that the rationale - such as it has been presented by them important folks - for increasing the audience (i.e. bring in the normal folk) was solely to generate more funding for the USET and the top athletes (Beezie Madden, Karen O’Connor/David O’Connor, Robert Dover, etc.) and their horses, while not expanding the sports, except among the wealthy enough to dabble in it. If you do some research, you’ll see that the new money crowd isn’t all that interested in spending their time and money on horses, preferring to do more self-oriented things like buying boats and going on trips. The two end goals of funding and expansion can certainly overlap, but are not mutually exclusive in any way. As for the OP’s NASCAR reference and comparison, that particular ship is sinking due to an ever increasing lack of interest from both spectators and viewers (nobody really gives a #### about it anymore and the plebeian eyes and wallets are now directed towards other sports like MMA and wrestling, which can be comfortably watched at home or at your local pub/sports-bar/Tits N’ Wings) and sponsors are walking away from it en masse. Why? It simply fell out of fashion and is no longer culturally relevant to the masses. Sound familiar? Basketball, Baseball, Hockey, Soccer and (Murican) Football are all in financial and spectator decline as well, with their youth equivalents showing a steady decline in participation and support.
If I wanted to participate in a rodeo, I would participate in a rodeo. I feel like the western events are more prevalent in a lot of places and cheaper, so if that’s what riders want they certainly have that option available. I specifically don’t like that atmosphere, and want to jump things, so I ride english. A lot of H/J riders probably have a similar perspective.
