You cant take reinging off the WES Cheduales, becasue you are just destroying the grass roots reiners, that are on the whole the main of a trainers income,

Yes I also remember my first attempts at reining and I have a long way to go yet. However if it is possible through good venues and it now is, to let people appreciate reining at grass roots.

Interesting thread - I have chosen to put two horses with a trainer here in the UK this year, and both of those plus one other will be going back again next year - it is my hope that one of them will be promising enough to go to Europe to compete but at this very young stage in my western development I for one am happy to support the trainers here in the UK - if we don't we face the very real prospect of not having any choice here - then where would those who can't afford or want to go to Europe be?

Of equal importance is the decision to support breeders here - if you genuninely can't find a youngster of the blood lines or quality you are looking for then by all means look overseas but the situation where our biggest breeders are having to send young stock to Europe to be sold - then having them sold out of trainers barns over there to UK owners who then leave the horse in the EU is going to severely damage this industry.

For what it's worth, there's my 10p!!

Jude

Been thinking about this for a while and
I think its fair to make a comparison with the USA,so the hub of the reining world over there is California,Texas and Oklahoma,
with interest and trainers in other states,
but people accept the need to travel out of state to get trainers and to show, this seems how things are going here. in europe, the hub here seems to be Italy,Germany and Holland so seems sensible to move where the action is, seems like its worth the effort
huge shows with all the clases including working cowhorse and cutting just a few hundred miles away from our 2nd rate venues and negative attitudes,

I think you make an intelligent observation. I do believe that we will in the future have more NRHA shows. The biggest constraint we have is that we an Island and it will be difficult to get competitors here, if you look at Mallorca even with the large prize money on offer, there were only 20 competitors.

We have to raise the level of Uk competitors and this will hopefully happen with time, the effort BR is trying to make in getting new blood needs to be carried through the winter and momentum pushed before the beginning of next years showing.

I still strongly believe that there is going to be an increase in membership in the UK.

The people that scorn horse going offshore also need to understand, that it is the horses that have a realistic chance of competing at a higher level that are moving and a lot of these will be at Bodium next year.

There is still a lot going for reining in the UK and there is opportunity with patience.