Eventing Nation’s regular British contributor lec has sent us her next post, this time about how British Eventing funds its riders. Thanks for writing this lec and thank you for reading.
From lec:
One of the things I have mentioned in previous articles is about lottery funding and I thought this week I would explain how the eventing teams in the UK are funded.
BE has a profit of £100,404 for the year.
This means that British Eventing is basically self funding with a small operating profit.
The yearly costs for teams come in at £210,000 for British Eventing. This is for the Ponies, juniors, young riders and senior teams. This is a drop in the ocean to the real costs so where does all the extra money come from to pay for teams, training and rider support?
British Equestrian Federation and Lottery Funding
The British Equestrian Federation (BEF) is the national governing body for horse sports in the UK. The BEF is affiliated to the FEI. There are 16 membership bodies of the BEF of which British Eventing is one. One of the main roles that BEF has is distributing government funding to equestrian sports. Funding comes from UK Sport and Sport England (more about these later!) develops the best riders, with the aim of winning medals for Great Britain and to encourage complete beginners to get involved.
Yes you heard it right. Eventing in the UK is heavily subsidised by the government. The money comes from the National Lottery. I understand that in the US you have state lotteries. In the UK we have one National Lottery. 28p in every £1 spent on the lottery goes into sport and good causes. Since the lottery started it has donated £20 billion to good causes and sport. The two organisations which hand out these funds are Sport England and UK Sport. UK Sport deals with elite sport. This Sport England develops grassroots sport. BE80T is a class that British Eventing was given additional money by Sport England. It encouraged more participation by beginners into the sport of eventing and so was eligible for this funding.
The reason all this funding came about was the dismal failure in all the Olympic sports at Atlanta in 1996. We won one gold medal and that was in rowing. In order to try and overcome this problem the UK government pledged to put millions of pounds into sport which had been for years woefully under funded.
Now we have covered the basics it’s onto the more interesting detail! That of what UK Sport, funds. This is where non UK riders will get jealous!
World Class Development
World Class Development is in place to develop and maximise potential. This is individual funding to riders and gets them access to top trainers, coaching and support. In order to be a member you must have excellent results both past and present. Anyone is eligible between the ages of 16 -30 years old. There are two written application stages and this is followed by selection trials. This is only eligible for the Olympic disciplines.
Criteria:
Under 18 year olds:
- Top 10 placing in a CCI *
- Top 5 placing at the JRN Championships
- Top 5 placing in the Pony Club Championships
- Top 15 placing individually at the Junior European Championships
- Counting score of a medal winning GBR Junior European Team
- Top 10 placing individually at the Pony European Championships or counting score of a GBR medal winning Pony European Team (providing the rider has moved on to horses).
18 – 21 year olds:
- Clear round cross country with qualifying result (according to BE Rule Book) at a CCI***/CIC***
- Top 15 placing in a CCI**
- Top 3 placing at the Pony Club Championships
- Counting score of a medal winning GBR Junior European Team
- Counting score of a medal winning GBR Young Rider European Team
- Top 15 individual placing at the Young Rider European Championships.
21 – 25 year olds:
- Completed a CCI**** with qualifying results (according to BE Rule Book)
- Top 20 placing in CCI***
- Top 10 placing in the Under 25 Championship at Bramham
- Top 5 placing in CIC***
- Top 5 individual placing at the Young Rider European Championships
- Counting score in a medal winning Young Rider European Team
- Selected for Senior Team.
26 + years old:
- Top 20 placing in a CCI****
- Top 10 placing in a CCI***
- Top 5 placing in a CIC***.
As you can see the criteria to be eligible are tough! This funding is for the elite few who are at the top of their respective levels. The final selection is a riding one where the riders are put through their paces by the top trainers in the UK and judged for potential and ambition. No rider automatically stays on this scheme. Riders are reviewed every six months and remain selected for two years before having to reapply. Currently there are 15 riders on this programme.
There is a separate scheme (World Class Performance) for those who are at the very top. These riders are on the British team and proven in their track record. From the scheme they get:
Performance director/managers advice and support, Programme administration, coaches and coach development, technical support (performance analysis), sports science and medicine consultants, including physiotherapy & sports psychology. Squad training, rider allowance for training and competition, key competition support (vets/coaches in attendance at key competitions), research & development, veterinary support, farriery support, medical support for riders, performance enhancing equipment, team clothing and championship costs & logistics management.
As you can see that is a lot of help which is all funded by UK Sport. Currently the riders on this scheme are Tina Cook, Piggy French, William Fox Pitt, Lucy Weigersma, Nicola Wilson, Mary King, Polly Stockton, Ruth Edge and Oliver Townend.
The reason you see the above riders and no others from the UK at Rolex is because the flights get paid for under this scheme. It’s this kind of support that has seen the UK consistently get medals at all the major championships. I know a lot of riders really rely on the money from this funding as it can make things a lot easier. For some riders its in the region of £20,000 a year.
There is also an Equine Performance Scheme which is very similar which ear marks horses from their results. The rider is then given specialist training and support to help maximise the horse’s potential. It is also an incentive scheme to owners to keep their horse and not push it too hard, too quickly.
In order to keep the funding the teams have to perform. Luckily the UK eventing team has consistently performed above and beyond the expectations. In Beijing the medal target was two of any colour which luckily eventing bought back. If eventing had not succeeded then the results would have been disastrous for eventing, dressage and show jumping as equestrian is all lumped together in terms of funding. With the results of Beijing, equestrian sport received £13.6 million in allocation for 2009 -2013. This is an increase of £2 million.
In the last month the medal expectations have been published for the UK at the 2012 Olympics. Equestrian sport needs to get three medals of any colour across the three Olympic disciplines of dressage, eventing and show jumping. Hopefully this will be achieved or else the UK will have serious funding issues. Losing eventing from the Olympics would be a disaster for UK eventing as the majority of its funding would dry up especially for teams.
