Two popular Scottish eventing venues have announced they will not be running British Eventing (BE) fixtures after this season.
Aswanley Horse Trials in Aberdeenshire and Hendersyde Park Horse Trials in Kelso have had fixtures on the BE calendar for 19 and 15 years respectively.
Aswanley Horse Trials organiser Pam Ingleby told H&H: “I’ve been going quite a long time so I think it’s time to stand down and let the younger generation take over.
“With BE we’ve been running 19 years but I’ve been running Aswanley 31 years with hunter trials and Pony Club. I’m hoping my son Jack and his wife Sarah Ingleby will take over in due course.”
Aswanley said a new cross-country course is being planned in a new location on the Aswanley site allowing improvement of the course’s safety and to “increase the frequency of events by integrating it more with the farming and wedding business”.
“I’ve very much enjoyed running the BE. BE gives you very good guidelines and it keeps a standard; it is really important to have a decent standard that people can aspire to,” Mrs Ingleby said. “People have been absolutely great – two volunteers have been with me the entire 19 years, Yvonne Smith and Fiona Hill. It’s terrific we’ve had such good help, people have been so loyal.”
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Hendersyde Park announced on Facebook: “The team at Hendersyde would like to thank all our sponsors, volunteers and competitors for their huge enthusiasm for Hendersyde over the past fifteen years. Plans are under way for our unaffiliated competitions on the same weekend next year.”
Owner Elizabeth Agnew told H&H: “We have been running 15 years and raised £60,000 for charity. We are looking forward to the future. We have had a great time running the event to include the BE Scottish Championships.”
Aswanley’s final BE event runs on 1 September.
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