A year of leaping the obstacles

I’ve been at Bramham Park now in my role of estate manager since January 2008 and this is the fourth Bramham International Horse Trials I have been director of. After four years you might think I would feel more in control. However, it would seem that every year, just when we think everything is under control, some challenge presents itself.

In 2009, Chatsworth cancelled due to poor weather and with just a few weeks’ notice Bramham put on a CIC3 three star competition to give Chatsworth competitors a run. Last year we completely re -planned the event site, moving everything around from the stables to car parks.

The challenge for 2012 has turned out to be a combination of the weather and the London Olympic Games. When we first opened our entries, we were thrilled to see lots of international competitors entering. Not a problem you might think, until you consider just how many horses you can physically run in a day. In the final two days before entries closed we passed last year’s entry figure and still they came. Always being up for a challenge and feeling for the poor competitors after the cancellation of both Badminton and Chatsworth, we felt that we only had one option: to do absolutely everything within our power to give as many competitors as we possibly could a run at Bramham and a chance for some of them to qualify for the Olympics.

Eventually, I found a solution. By moving one event out of one of our arenas, by creating an additional dressage arena and running two days of cross country, we could accommodate approximately 100 more competitors than last year.

Finding the timetable solution has just been the first step, now the whole team here are working through the rest of the associated logistics. It’s amazing what needs to happen to put on another day’s cross country, from finding fence judges and crossing stewards to providing more toilets and litter pickers, to keeping the PA system live and ordering another 300 packed lunches. Are we relishing the challenge? Absolutely!

Everything else in the build-up has been going well. The wet weather that has caused so many other events so much trouble has thus far helped us: the Park is looking magnificent, the rain has ensured a good covering of thick grass and this year rather than spending 18 hours a day watering the cross country course, the estate maintenance team have two tractors and gang mowers working overtime.

Ian Stark has designed another wonderful cross country course, and has some challenging questions set for the competitors this year – I can’t wait to see some of their faces when they see one combination in particular.

As ever we are grateful to our sponsors, without whom the event could not take place. Many, such as British Horse Feeds, Bishop Burton College, Carter Jonas, Dickinson Dees, Welcome to Yorkshire and the Yorkshire Post are returning whilst we have some new sponsors this year including Harringtons Dog Food, Horse & Hound, Stormtech and Volvo.

One partnership that has really blossomed is that with Equi-trek, our title sponsors for this year, who when they first started sponsoring at Bramham only employed a small number of people and produced around 125 horse boxes a year.

Now they manufacture over 2,200 horse boxes a year and employ 140 staff.

The Equi-Trek Bramham International Horse Trials run from June 7 to 10.

Tickets are available to book in advance until our booking office closes on May 28, and if you book in advance you not only save £5 a day in parking charges and you are automatically entered into a free prize draw to win the value of your booking back in full.

Go to www.bramham-horse.co.ukwww.bramham-horse.co.uk or call 01937 846017.