British Eventing

British Eventing (BE) is the national governing body for the sport of eventing – a three-phase competition in which a competitor rides the same horse in the dressage, cross-country and showjumping phases – in Britain.

The responsibilities of BE include co-ordinating the calendar of affiliated events which take place each year and setting and maintaining the standards which fixtures must meet to be affiliated to BE. Some of these events will also be affiliated to the FEI, the international governing body for horse sport, if they run international classes.

British Eventing is a membership organisation with around 15,000 members, who pay an annual fee to join, with different categories of membership available such as full, owner, supporter and corporate memberships. Horses must be registered with BE to compete in affiliated events. Day ticket schemes allow riders and horses to try BE competitions without paying the full membership and registration costs.

BE is run by a non-executive board, whose members serve on a voluntary basis, and a team of full- and part-time paid staff who work either out of the headquarters near Kenilworth, Warwickshire, or regionally in the field. The chief executive is Jude Matthews. Hundreds of volunteers are also needed to run events, in roles such as dressage writers, cross-country fence judges and showjumping arena party.

Affiliated eventing in Britain was run by the British Horse Society until 1997, when the British Horse Trials Association (BHTA) was set up as an independent body. The organisation changed its name to British Eventing in 2001. Eventing is still sometimes known as horse trials.

BE is a member body of British Equestrian (previously known as the British Equestrian Federation and still shortened to BEF), which brings together sport organisations such as BE and its equivalents in the other Olympic disciplines (British Dressage (BD) and British Showjumping (BS)) as well as non-Olympic sport federations, industry bodies such as the British Grooms Association and the British Equestrian Trade Association and charities such as World Horse Welfare, the Riding for the Disabled Association and the British Horse Society.