Am I just not finding the ads or does there seem to be a lack of advertising up in Scotland? The WES summer show is on next weekend - July 15th at the new Oatridge equestrian centre near Edinburgh but its not been added to the events or advertised elsewhere. I've added a quick note just to let people know about it. Western riding is getting more popular but some people are put off when they don't know who else is doing it/where they can compete etc etc so why are those in the know not passing on the word of mouth when the main events are organised?? Maybe I'm just missing it - but then if I'm not seeing it who else is missing it?? Does that make sense? the same thing happened with the Spring show!

Hi Chestnutmare - have you contacted your wes area rep to see why it's not been advertised?

No but I will be mentioning it to the organisers at the show.

Why are you not finding the ads ? it is on many  web sites for example Western Riding Scotland, WES,British Reining and Riona Quarter Horses, Kayreen Jones and her team work very hard to let everybody  know whats going on ! entry forms can also be downloaded from Western Riding Scotland, hope this helps you.     

I appreciate your comments and from your reply I'm getting the feeling I may have offended some. That was not my intention at all. If you do a google search for western riding in Scotland it is page 3 before the sundance website comes up then page 4 before the western shop shows. The show had not been posted on the western shop or western scene so it would prove very difficult for someone new to the sport to find this information. The other web site western riding scotland didnt show in the first 18 pages & I gave up looking after that. WES didn't show up either.  I've read the forum on the two separate web sites with similar names. I think the more publicity the better. What would be beneficial would be to get some web site optimisation going so the sites are coming up in the top 5. Although I've had quarter horses for 25 years I'm fairly new to western riding but would like to get involved more. It would be great if we could generate more interest and in doing so have more shows and clinics up here 

I think the problem is that website optimisation costs a lot of money - or a lot of knowledge from people who are building these websites for free. You have to know what you are doing to come up in the top three pages of google etc. Most of the websites are built by people who are trying to promote the sport but are not necessarily webdesigners. You have to get the website search-engine friendly, with the right meta tags, keywords and content to stand a chance with the search engines. There are companies out there who charge a fortune to do all that because that is their field of expertise.

However, the more you link to the bigger sites, the more chance you have of being seen. It is a minefield and I have spent the last 8 years learning about it. Not helped by the fact that we are in direct competition with the singer, David Gray and he gets much more special treatment than David Gray the western trainer.... :-