In April 2020, and in the interest of legacy, I penned a Wikipedia entry recording the thoughts and notable achievements of myself as Harveywetdog. I admit I was ignorant of the rules concerning self promotion on Wikipedia at the time; consequently my entry was unfortunately, although arguably correctly, deleted and my account expunged from the system. As a result my original words and links were sadly lost but nevertheless here is an attempt at a rewrite. Perhaps when I'm gone someone will be able to enter it onto Wikipedia on my behalf, to serve as a fitting epitaph for the exciting times I spent on the Harveywetdog Project.
Public Filming & Streaming Policy at Blenheim 2025
Harveywetdog writes
Following my difficulties at Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials last year (when operating as accredited media) I was interested to see this apparently bizarre statement from this year’s organisers, tucked away on the European Championships (Blenheim Palace) website, which clearly demonstrates the difficulty of enforcing media rights at equestrian events which, in common with all sport, are not in themselves a copyrightable work.
Now personally I think if you’re going to make this sort of statement as an organiser you've got to make it perfectly clear to members of the public at the time they buy their tickets. In this case the statement did not appear on the ticket purchase pages of the Blenheim website but appeared under the competition heading.
In fairness, the event terms and conditions, accessed through the ticket purchase page, do warn against unauthorised recording of the event. The wording in the statement below is a much softer version of the threat laden version found in the T&Cs, although the message is pretty much the same. The new version leans heavily on the FEI non Rights Holder restrictions for FEI named events and attempts to appeal to the publics’ better nature to comply rather than threaten them into submission.
Blenheim’s Public Filming & Streaming Policy
Before I explain how I got on at Blenheim in 2025, lets look at what their Public Filming and Streaming Policy said exactly.
“To protect existing commercial agreements, we respectfully ask that members of the public do not publish, post, or live stream any video footage of the Field of Play at the Agria FEI Eventing European Championship.
The Field of Play (FOP) includes the following areas:
Main Arena Warm-up Area Kiss & Cry Zone Leaders’ Lounge Entrance/Exit Area The Cross-Country Course
8 & 9 Year Old Class:
Please note that, to protect commercial agreements, members of the public are kindly asked not to publish, post, or live stream footage of an entire showjumping round, or more than 45 seconds of any single round.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation. We look forward to welcoming you to a memorable Agria Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials."
Harveywetdog's experience at Blenheim 2025
Recognising that accreditation was simply not an option, I nevertheless attended Blenheim on Friday afternoon and all day Saturday and recorded video on both days. Although I uploaded a short video on Friday evening I made sure this didn't go live until Saturday evening for obvious reasons.
In practice I found that there were no signs to warn people of the request not to post video of the field of play at the venue and of course cameras and phones were out in force all around the course. The request didn't jump out of the programme I purchased either but it might be hidden away in there somewhere.
What always surprises me is that organisers make these requests and yet let the public in carrying their DSLRs with massive lens obviously intent on recording the action and who's to say whether they will record still or moving images?
It was interesting to note that accredited media had either black or purple media tabards. The black tabard indicated that you were a non rights holder, while the purple indicated that you were a rights holding broadcaster.
So all in all a little bit of a half hearted effort which didn't spoil my day out or stop me publishing the video I wanted to. I probably felt a little bit more anxious around the course than I do at say Badminton, but I'm pleased to see a number of public videos on YouTube from the event complementing the official footage.
Finally we have to accept that although the organisers claim that the reason behind the broadcasting restrictions is to "protect commercial agreements", the real reason is to control any unpleasant images that the public may publish in the event of horse or rider falls and injuries.
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