When in a hole stop digging

In another Friday press release, issued on Facebook with the option to comment turned off, British Eventing have announced that the July International event, previously held at Barbury, will now take place at Aston-Le-Walls. This will be Aston’s fifth BE event in 2023 and the second in July.

Simpler Times? An International feel to Aston Le Walls back in 2014
©Harveywetdog

In order to avoid any conflict with BE’s restrictions on venues that are awarded International events, Aston appears to have trimmed, or more accurately culled, its unaffiliated offering. Aston will however be offering “3 phase schooling days”, under the Horse Events banner, which might look like, sound like and smell like unaffiliated horse trials but clearly aren't.

You can’t blame Aston for trying. Times are hard and bills have to be paid. Their first schooling days took place in early March which, given that they must have been in place prior to the Barbury decision, would appear to indicate that they anticipated International events becoming available hence kept themselves compliant on the ‘no unaffiliated events’ rule.

But it’s important to remember that British Eventing’s concern was not unaffiliated events per se, but unregulated sport, specifically “providing a fair and level playing-field where safety, equine welfare, safeguarding and clean sport are mandatory”. How these worthy ideals can be achieved in a three phase schooling day, but not in an unaffiliated event at the same venue, is anyone’s guess. Perhaps British Eventing will be able to explain? Then again they may remember that when you’re in a hole it’s best to stop digging.

And finally 

After the Barbury decision in February I wrote to British Equestrian to ask their opinion on some of the social licensing concerns British Eventing had referenced in their press release. I also wanted to know where British Equestrian stood on British Eventing announcing themselves as regulators for the sport of eventing. I received a response on Friday 17th March, the same day we were told that Helen West would resign as British Eventing CEO.

The response from British Equestrian was quite informative explaining that their Social Licensing Working Group had met with the member bodies only that week for a "positive session" giving "a good starting point" to "develop clear messaging" and asking me to agree that it is "something everyone in the equestrian community needs to unite on", which of course I do (in principle).

The question on national regulators wasn't really answered other than to confirm that member bodies were responsible for regulating their own organisations and members (plus a host of other things). That doesn't make you a national regulator of course and neither does it prevent an unaffiliated event from providing an equally regulated environment for people and horses to compete safely in.

My final question revolved around social license and the suggested impact of unaffiliated sport on an ethical future for equestrian sport. British Equestrian confirmed that the unaffiliated/unregulated sport issue "has not been widely investigated by the group" adding that British Eventing had "acted as they felt was right" over Barbury and "for what they see as the best interests of the sport".

We wait to see how this develops.