sorry if my post was seen as negative ,I supose I am... I do think we should realise that we are involved in a minorty equine sport thats totaly misunderstood by the majorty of UK horse people who are very much stuck in a rut and seem happy to stay there, read any of the british horse press or watch super dull horse and country tv to comfirm this,western is pareli and montys romances they have no real western stuff. I realy think the answer is to get on with our own thing,stop trying to sell it to the wider public.. invest time and money in building our own facilites or help the likes of david deptford to improve his
place,it would be great if we could all pull together(wes br wha etc)to build a show venue members could buy shares to raise funds we live in a small country so if it was central most of us could use it what do othe people think???

I think one of the problems is that the mainstream equestrian community in the UK doesn't really register that the western competition scene exists and certainly has no idea that western breeds and especially reining are not suited to the currently fashionable gel track type surfaces. And how the heck should they know?

A few weeks ago I happened to be chatting to a lady who is building up a large competition facility near where I live - her huge indoor arena is under construction and she hadn't made a final decision re surface. She seemed genuinely interested when I explained as best I could the issues, so I put her in touch with BR (no idea what transpired after that but at least I tried).

There must be other venues currently planning investment in facilities that might just consider their choice of surface with the addition of western competition useage in mind, if it were equally suitable for other equestrian disciplines.

Which comes back to profile. We really do need to get this in Horse and Hound as a news item don't we?

Cheers

Linda