What if the Spanish Riding School Disappeared?

[slc2]

The Spanish Riding School seems to be in a lot of trouble. Financial woes are plaguing both Piper and the School.

How do you feel about the School? Does it have a direct value to the riding community in other countries? Is it worth preserving? How can people who enjoy the school continuing to exist help it?

I saw on one website the new manager thought the riders got too high a bonus on tours and was planning to not have any foreign tours, and to double the number of performances in Vienna.

The bonus for the riders to travel did seem high, but when I tried to calculate it out, they were getting paid about what someone would for a riding lesson. Since many now have training businesses in the afternoon, they do lose business if they travel, yet tours seem to be the one thing that best publicizes the school. How can these problems be resolved?

[sm1]

I’m sure the travel costs are completely out of control, between hauling the vans and everything else. Plus their home turf has so much character and charm, and keeping the horses home more often must be healthier for them.

I hope they find ways to boost attendance with the extra shows. I know they have the Spanish Riding School Kollektion product line out at Dover, don’t know how sucessfull it is. But it’s that type of thinking/marketing that will help them out in the long run.

Just need more successful marketing efforts straight from their headquarters…

[angel]

The Spanish Riding School, and similar demonstrations of which there are only a few, are the last bastions of good dressage riding. Everywhere else around you, there has been a constant erosion of principles. The great division between what is taught and shown in the Spanish Riding School and between what is shown and pinned in the dressage ring will cause the Spanish Riding School to be lost. I am sorry to see this happen, but the reality is that it is already lost.

[egontoast]

Maybe you could start an on line auction for them, slick. Sell off all your medals , worn out pIkeurs and tattered shadbellies for a good cause.

[RonaldGroen]

SRS at Vienna will never disappear. But you probably have fly over to the beautifull city of Vienna to watch their shows.

[merrygoround]

One can only hope that bringing in a financial maestro will be a good move. The reason some colleges and universities do well financially is the talent of their aminisrtative staffs. The professors, teach. They do not attempt both.

Let the classical educated riders and breeders do what they do best. Breed and Teach!

And Eggie!!! I too bypass most of “those” posts, but I cannot but envy the time and facility, with which she posts… When DOES she have time to ride???

[RonaldGroen]

@angel;2965016

The Spanish Riding School, and similar demonstrations of which there are only a few, are the last bastions of good dressage riding. Everywhere else around you, there has been a constant erosion of principles. The great division between what is taught and shown in the Spanish Riding School and between what is shown and pinned in the dressage ring will cause the Spanish Riding School to be lost. I am sorry to see this happen, but the reality is that it is already lost.

The SRS get the most income by filling the gaps at dressage shows.:yes:

[egontoast]

The SRS get the most income by filling the gaps at dressage shows.:yes: Jan. 26, 2008 04:12 PM

THat makes no sense since they don’t show (right? )

Would you like to explain what you mean by that?

[Equibrit]

Duh!! Displays.

[_Freedom]

@egontoast;2965017

Maybe you could start an on line auction for them, slick. Sell off all your medals , worn out pIkeurs and tattered shadbellies for a good cause.

Maybe SLC can house them at her new barn, assuming of course they are willing to work under all the arena rules.

[egontoast]

Duh!! Displays.

Duh, yourself. In the boonies we don’t have the SRS exposing I mean displaying themselves all over the noon break.

[dutchmike]

I personally think there is a good chance it might dissapear. I don’t hope so but nowadays who cares about stuff like the SRS now if it was soccer then money would be no problem:(

[Thomas_1]

If it closes, then we’ll be short of something to do every October

I’d like to ask the OP her opinions in relation to the questions posed?

[JSwan]

@Thomas_1;2965539

If it closes, then we’ll be short of something to do every October

Northern Germany. A little town called Osterholz-Scharmbeck. Kohl und Pinkle washed down with copious amounts of Schinken schnapps.

Every fall/winter.

Trust me.:yes:

[ASB_Stars]

and it is Piber… :winkgrin:

[Thomas_1]

[QUOTE=J Swan;2965591]
Northern Germany. A little town called Osterholz-Scharmbeck. Kohl und Pinkle washed down with copious amounts of Schinken schnapps.

Every fall/winter.

Trust me.:yes:[/QUOTE] Ah but they won’t have the Vienna Opera House

[JSwan]

The choir meets at Gut Sandbeck. Last time I was there, you picked up your sheet music, put a pfenning in the jar, grabbed a beer, and sat down.

It was German Opera, kind of. Depending on how much beer we drank.

I guess these days you’d used a Euro.

[js]

[QUOTE=sm;2964647]
I hope they find ways to boost attendance with the extra shows. I know they have the Spanish Riding School Kollektion product line out at Dover, don’t know how sucessfull it is. But it’s that type of thinking/marketing that will help them out in the long run.

Just need more successful marketing efforts straight from their headquarters…[/QUOTE]

I was under the impression that at home shows and training sessions were sold out well in advance, for shows it was like a year out, is that not the case any more? What happens to all the riders that complete training there? Are they going out and training, passing that knowledge to others? I’d love it if they would offer special week packages to watch a show and watch all training sessions and have an open question/answer/demonstrations session. Maybe they should get more into the breeding, training and selling to the public. It would be a historical loss if the SRS shut its doors forever.

[slc2]

I had thought that they could sell out as many at home shows as they could do. People who aren’t particularly interested in dressage go so there is a huge potential audience, i think it is a ‘thing to do’ in Vienna.

There has at times been pressure in the past to do more shows - some riders are supposed to have said in the 80s when there were many more shows that the horses were getting used too much and they did not like the effect on the horses.

There always seems to be a long waiting list for performance and schooling session tickets. I’ve heard people even say they didn’t even try to get tickets when they went, ‘because they’re always sold out’.

I don’ t think the farm at Piper is big enough to produce a lot of babies. They have sold them on their web site for quite some time, but very few people seem to know how to get to the website. The prices at least last time i looked were very reasonable, but the farm is a lot further away than the sale barns in Holland and Germany.

For a long time there have been articles saying many of the riders have training businesses and they ride at the SRS in the morning and then go to their businesses the rest of the day. At some point that started to be allowed, according to some because otherwise they couldn’t keep the riders. They could get their training and then leave and be assured of a very good living for many years.

I don’t know if books like Charles Harris’ give any percentage to the SRS…probably not. But I would think that people would absolutely love such a book which has all his notes from 3 yrs at the school. It’s fascinating to read and see how much of dressage is still taught exactly that way.

I broke all the notes in the book down by category and the vast majority of notes were on…position and the aids.

[sm1]

another thing to consider is in the old days the only way to get the word around was to physically do these world wide tours. I remember traveling 4 hours (one way) to see them.

Today there’s 24/7 horse tv on the internet, cable horse channels… many other types of opportunities. It would be great to highlight their training and a few of their star horses. Where they were foaled, early trainng days, and then fast forward to the high school stuff.

Add the kid rider who barely made it into the school having a special bond with the horse and they both become the best in the world, Holy Jeez, it’s a disney movie!!! Just need to work out all the language translations, it’ll be a blockbuster all over EU and NA. But, as Star Wars will tell you, the real money is made in the merchandising of toys, tee shirts, don’t forget Burger King kids meals trinkets. It could be tons of income for the SRS…

And Breyer will have to come out with their model of the star… can’t leave out Breyer.