15 upcoming events
Next event:
05/01/2025 Indoor Jumping Clinic with Julia Nelson @ Appleton Grange
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Looking back on the year just finished, as we normally do at this time of year, the overriding memory is the weather! An extremely wet start to 2024 left events struggling to take place, or caused a heap of cancellations in those first 4 months. The Summer itself actually proved quite dry, in fact it was an average summer, which we were happy to take after such a wet Winter and Spring. The year also ended on a wet and windy note, we hope not a sign for 2025!
A big newcomer to the equine arena in 2024 was Hobby Horses. A stick with a fabric horses head attached. A craze that has gone ballistic this year with events popping up all over the country. (See our charts below to see how much of our events was dominated by Hobby Horses!). You can compete with your own hobby horse, or many organisers will also loan you one, at show jumping, dressage and even barrel racing. Entertainment for both the competitor and spectators alike. This year even saw the inaugural Hobby Horse of the Year Show, held at Arena UK, We are sure that in 2025 this discipline will continue to go from strength to strength. Hobby Horses became so big in 2024 that they featured in their own episode of the BBC's Online Series What's Your Thing:
We should also not forget that it was an Olympic Year and our equestrians managed to put behind them all the furore over Charlotte Dujardin's video to come away with a sack of medals again: Show jumping and Eventing Team Gold medals and Team Bronze in the Dressage. And also individual Bronze in the Eventing and Dressage for Laura Collett and Lottie Fry respectively.
And we cannot finish off the year without a couple of charts- we love a chart!
The first one shows the percentage of entries by show type. There is no surprise again to see Unaffiliated and British Showjumping taking the top 2 slots. Tuition is holding strong in 3rd but a brand new appearance this year was Hobby Horsing and in its first year it has managed to grab 6% of the total entries for 2024. It will be interesting to see if this craze grows even more in 2025 - perhaps it will take an even bigger percentage of entries as we go forwards!
Our second chart shows the entries since 2010, when we first started online with Horsevents. Again 2024 has seen an increase over the previous year, and in such a hard year as well with the weather causing so many events to either not run at all or to cancel! Looking forward to continuing that growing trend as we ride on into 2025.
Good luck to everyone taking part in any equine event in 2025!
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