So is this correct? Next year you can still compete at starter and not join the USEA if you don’t want points?
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I’ve never seen a coach charge a higher coaching fee for recognized than unrecognized. I’ve seen higher charges for away shows or multi-day shows, and trailering is more expensive for a longer distance, but coaching fees are usually standard IME. I can’t say what’s going on in this specific example but I think it’s unlikely to be related to the instructor’s fees.
There are benefits to recognized that make it worth the extra cost to some people. Consistency and standardization are the big one. I’ve seen some weird course design choices at unrecognized events even if they also run recognized. It’s not always the same courses. I knew a trainer who generally encouraged his students to go recognized because he’d been burned by too many unrecognized events and got tired of wondering what he was walking into on any given day. Anyone who wants to put a record on a horse has to go recognized, and points/qualifiers can still be important to people that don’t end up going to championships. It’s a lot easier for a trainer to take all their students to one show, so if a few people want to go recognized then it’s recognized for everyone, or go another weekend.
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I’m pretty sure this is what they did before BN was a recognized level. I remember not being a USEA member and entering BN and being charged a $50 “non membership fee” so maybe that’s what they will also do for Intro?
I’m in Area VI and all of our venues offer “Intro” or “Starter” - these names are interchangeable here and most courses are 2’3 with a w/t/c dressage test. XC does have terrain questions (one course even has an up bank / down bank “option” (they flag on the space between the up and down banks so you can choose to go up and between the flags and down, OR just pick some S type line that will get you through the flags without the banks). From looking at the omnibus, it looks like the starter divisions are about $25 cheaper than the BN/N/T division.
Also, we do have one venue here that offers grasshopper. This is a walk trot test with 18" xc jumps and a cross rail show jump course. This level has been offered at both their schooling event weekends as well as rated event weekends.
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We have two unrecognized shows that offer a intro/“baby green” level at 18” with options to do just a combined test or all three phases. The first being a W/T dressage test, stadium is just crossrails, XC is mostly logs with the occasional small tire jump or gate. It’s untimed, on fairly level terrain, and riders have the option to have a trainer/friend ride out with them on XC for support.
It’s really fun and friendly, and they see a huge portion of their turnout from junior riders in local lesson programs who just want to dip their toes into something new and exciting. It’s also not unfairly taxing for Dobbin the lesson pony who may be old enough to vote and spends 90% of his time puttering around the ring teaching kiddos the ropes. $110 per division. They run it alongside a fundraiser for the local hospital’s cancer center, with a portion of all entries going as a donation. I think in total they raised over $20K this past weekend.
The other event is hosted by a college program. It’s much more formal, and the atmosphere is probably closer to an actual recognized event because the facility regularly hosts those too and is set up for it. $95 per HT division, USDF intro C dressage test, stadium is all verticals with some fill, and XC is timed (the optimum is… generous). It’s hilly terrain, in and out of the woods, and a larger variety of fences (pint-sized cabins, coops, a hanging log or two). Riders go out on their own, but there’s an option to ship in the night before to school the XC before competing the next day.
This one was my very first competitive XC experience back in 2019. I was just stepping out of the hunter ring for the first time. Knowing that we could literally walk any of these fences if all else failed (or I panicked) gave me some reassurance and we got around just fine. My saintly schoolmaster of a WB was started as an eventer. He joyfully dragged me around the course at schooling on Friday night at questionably high speed. Come Saturday, though, he was sucked back and looky because those horse-eating jump judges and their lawn chairs weren’t there before! Horses. 
Very long story short, I don’t see these types of events competing with a recognized starter division for entries in our specific area. They cater largely to a group of riders who either can’t/wouldn’t enter a bonafide event for whatever reason, or who haven’t had the experience and just want to test the waters.
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This!
Add that you are far more likely at a recognized event to get a judge that is experienced with judging the thing that you are there to be judged about.
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Bingo. And maybe this coach wants to be one of the few competing training or prelim themselves and earn money the same weekend too rather than one weekend for their students and another for themselves. And if a starter rider wants to qualify for championships its probably the coach’s idea, or the culture in the program.
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It could. I feel as if there isn’t one factor alone contributing to all of this - it’s a lot of small pieces. Lack of land resources, diminishing venues, increased costs of keeping a horse and boarding in general, increased fuel/vehicle/trailer costs, overall inflation… I think the sport has tried really hard to make things assessible, but unfortunately horsekeeping as a whole has become increasingly expensive, thinning the pool across the board. It has indirectly lead to a loss of independence among the average rider, who is shoeboxed into keeping a horse at a boarding barn that requires a program.
It doesn’t help the “HJ Model” of exclusivity and reliance on a (boarding/training) program is pushed by trainers and is becoming increasingly popular. I understand why trainers push for this: its a reliable source of income to enforce XYZ lessons a month + training rides, and it is a bigger degree of control over clientele in their books.
I’m probably an outlier in terms of the lower level/amateur demographic. I’m not in any major trainer’s program, I keep my horses at home, and I only lesson/clinic a few times a year as a truck-in rider. I’d love to be in a program but it just isn’t sustainable for me at this point in my life.
From the outside looking in at general barns in the area that offer this HJ Model, I can say it’s harder for people like me to squeeze our way into trainer books for lessons. Trainers really want the full package (I don’t blame them!) from their clientele. I’m lucky I have two trainers who generously allow me in their schedule although I am not a boarder/client, but it has become increasingly difficult to coordinate these things. I do miss the simplicity of my earlier years in eventing where this model was not so prevalent.
A neutral observation about the HJ Model coming into Eventing: it’s increasingly common that trainers expect to select the horse for their clientele, versus trainers working with the horse a client shows up with. I mention this, because it is relevant – it has shifted the type of clientele that trainers seek in their program.
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I am curious about this statement and how different things are in different regions. Do you not usually have the same judges do both? Maybe we’re spoiled in Area 1 in that regard because usually the unrecognized shows utilize the same judges as recognized - it’s part of the draw of going to a schooling show, I think.
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I was thinking more along the lines of hunter type unrated versus rated when I said that.
I have been to a hunter unrated show that the judge mainly did breed shows and we spent all day wondering how they decided to place things, as an example.
Clearly if we are talking about starter at an event that is rated (when starter was not rated), then yes, they would get the same judges.
An event that is totally not rated at all, who knows what you would get for the dressage judges. Some instructor?
Oh! Okay, that makes more sense.
I recently attended a 2-day XC course design and jump building clinic. The designer, who does courses in Canada and the US, was adamant that courses be built up to height and difficulty. This was in order to be standard and ensure MERs are valid, without giving competitors an “easy pass” which won’t adequately prepare them for a move up.
I questioned the level creep a few times, and was told, this is the level now, yes it may be harder but we have to prepare competitors for the next level up. He also stated, “oh the riders are practicing these questions at home over stadium jumps, they can handle this.”
I think that really depends. In our province we’re down to 3 event sites (from a high of 10 or 11). Some people ride with a coach the majority of the time and probably do school the questions over show jumps, all year, and can haul to the XC schooling days at all those courses within an hour of their barn. Others of us are not so fortunate, live 5-10 hours away from the action, don’t have an indoor, don’t take weekly or twice weekly lessons. Like another poster above, in 1999 I started a green TB at his first event 90cm Pre-Training course, which was all straightforward jumps with a single 2-jump combination on flat ground in a straight line. The water was a flagged entrance with no jumps nearby.
In 2023, we built a Novice/90cm level corner and “triple brush” skinny (8 foot wide back, 3’6 wide face).
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We generally have L judges at our schooling shows, both at events and at dressage shows.
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I’m betting this is what’s going to happen to Starter level in the next few years. Yes, for now USEA membership is optional, but I have a feeling that it will become mandatory if you want to compete in Starter at a recognized event. It was nice to be able to do a couple of shows at Starter level with a young or green horse prior to having to pay to register them and have a membership for yourself as well.
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USEA confirmed on their facebook that next year those who wish to compete at starter will not have to join USEA (and also will not have to pay non-member fee). You would have to join to be eligible for year-end awards and championship qualifications - although it sounds like there is no guarantee of Starter at 2024 AECs right now.
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I’m thinking only of GMHA here but I did a BN division at the schooling event maybe…gosh about 8 years ago that had an unmarked water, hard right turn to a blind water entry, up a hill to an up/down bank, then a jump about three strides from the top of the steep down bank to an unmarked water.
I felt run through the wringer on a course that only took about three minutes start to finish. That was my last event for other reasons but YIKES.
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jumping over here from h/j land: this is the trend in h/j shows. Everyone (all levels) goes to shows together. The trainer takes everyone to one location and everyone shows in something at the same event on the same week/end.
Much as people complain how showing has shifted from something you aspired to, to something you just do: I think some of the clients like this model. No FOMO. Everyone gets to participate and be part of the show(s). It is super efficient for trainers.
Given how fast this transition happened for h/j, and how well it works for trainers, I advise the eventing crowd to buckle your seat belts, this is coming your way.
Pretty sure I can figure out who this is 
I ran the event at his home farm and it was the Entry Olympics.
Except for some events (like Jump Start in KY) you can only enter through Xentry and had to have the lowest level/price of membership to be able to use the system. At lease that I could see.
Yes- I entered JS at Starter. I am an older ammy who switched to eventing last year on a jumper. I am in an eventing trainer and schooling area wasteland ( and keep my guys at home). We do have a BO /Trainer that bring in local clinicians consistenly spring-early winter so that is a huge plus. We have a few events at our horse park, a very good series that a local trainer puts on to spec of the levels but little chance to see where you are in different parks and different elements.
This will be my first time eventing in KY so I was anxious if we both can replicate the confidence away from one of our 2 or 3 “regular” show venues. “Does he know/understand his xc job” (and can I give him the fair ride) is why I am glad that there is a level that gives me no hesitation over the fences (he literally canters over them, my pictures suck 
) but allows me to run around (albeit slowly) and gain confidence.
I hope it doesn’t drive away the local series. I think they are great and fun and I wouldn’t be eventing now (even low level that I am) if not for them to dip my foot in. I am prob not the target for the Starter recognized- I am not sure who the target is. On the other hand- I am the target as someone who can afford to go to a rated show instead of a schooling show to get additional miles at lower levels. But I sure don’t want my schooling series to go away and try to support them in my area. We have a rider in our area who is riding in the top events in the country and brings his greenies to our local schooling AND our local rate series (which is so so amazing for us).
Just the ramblings of a new event rider.
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I do hope that they have someone with an English accent annoucing for you on your xc so that you can mentally pause for a second and lock in that Ky Horse Park ride! It is a thrill of a lifetime.
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I used Xentry for all my starter entries last year and the the lowest level of entry was free. I think it was a limited or restricted membership? I can’t remember. But I was able to enter without paying for any type of membership. I’m not sure if maybe it is event specific.
I think recognized starter will do very well in areas without comparable schooling horse trials, where starter starter entry fees are currently not much cheaper than BN. Maybe that isn’t common across the board and we’ll see pockets where it thrives and other pockets where it doesn’t, but the comments on the USEA’s fb were overwhelming positive (more so than I expected).
Stone Gate seems to be planning to offer both (with unrecognized starter running under a different name). They posted soliciting responses as to whether people wanted it to run recognized or unrecognized next Spring, and the responses seemed pretty evenly mixed.
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