Horse Showing in Europe Versus North America

After spending 90 days and 10 horse shows in Europe, it became very evident that there are many distinct differences between the North American system of horse showing and the European system. I am going to try to focus on the major differences of the two systems. I want to point out that my comparison is of the two systems as they are at the top level of the sport in both venues. It deals with shows in North America such as, Wellington, Tampa and Ocala in Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Spruce Meadows, Alberta; Thunderbird, British Columbia; Collingwood, Bolton, Hendervale, CSIO Toronto, Ontario; Bromont, Quebec City, Blainville, Quebec; and in Europe, with shows such as CSIO Helsinki, Finland; CSIO Bremmen, Norway; CSIO Ikast, Denmark; CSIO Falsterbo, Sweden; CSIA Spangenberg, CSIA Hachenburg, Gera, Balve and CSIA Berlin, Germany.

The North American Model

North American Shows have many different divisions. Often, our shows remain several weeks at the same location. We have extensive classes for both jumpers and amateurs. In many shows we have as many as five jumper divisions for juniors and another five jumper divisions for amateurs as well as training jumpers, schooling high and low, preliminary high and low, intermediate and modified. Besides all of this, there are twice as many divisions for hunters. Many of our better horse shows have thousands of horses entered as compared with maybe two hundred at a big show in Europe. In the North American system, there is something for every horse and rider imaginable.

The typical professional equestrian in our system makes a living by teaching, riding, trucking and caring for both the riders and horses. In many cases our riders ride 20 to 30 mounts in an ordinary day at one of our shows. To say the least, our professionals stay very busy. On top of all of this, they have to wine and dine their customers and do a great deal of public relations in order to keep them happy.

Scroll to continue with content

European System

All of this is quite different in Europe. The average professional goes to a show with four, maybe five horses. They remain at the show from Thursday afternoon until Sunday afternoon, then return home and begin again the following week. There are little or no junior amateur classes; at some shows they have one national class and one junior class.

The European equestrian seems not to have many teaching duties and as far as I could tell, they did not have the inclination to teach or the teaching skills that we do. The riders over there seem to have a lot more time on their hands. They have five- and six-year-old classes at some of the shows and seven- and eight-year-old classes at others, only a few having both.

The only other divisions were the “Big Tour” (1.60m) and the “Small Tour” (1.50m), both of which were one-rider, one-horse divisions and both required qualifying for the grand prix on Sunday. At some of the shows, they had 1.45m speed classes instead of the small tour classes. As I said earlier, in each of the two larger divisions you ride only one horse in each class.

Approximately 50 riders are invited to compete and invitations are not easy to come by. The trick is that only 30 of the 50 riders qualify for the grand prix. The net result of this system is that almost every horse jumps on Friday and Saturday just to have the chance to jump on Sunday. It is the rider that qualifies, so at times you do see riders mixing and changing their mounts. They may ride one in the qualifier on Friday and another in the qualifier on Saturday. Usually the Friday class is a big table A speed class and Saturday is a big jump off class, which is like a grand prix in itself. You rarely see a rider, however, not showing in both qualifiers to insure their starting position.

The cast of riders at almost every show included at least 15 of the top 20 riders in the world and as you can imagine, this makes for very competitive rounds with all the big money being in the grand prix. The jump order for the grand prix is made in the reverse order of how a rider qualified and the jump order during the earlier classes, is done alphabetically. The show office picks a letter at random and that is where the order starts, the rest is automatically based on the alphabetical list. It was quite common to see many riders who did not qualify for the grand prix packing up and leaving on Sunday.

VIP Treatment for Riders

It was a delight to see how they treated the riders and owners. The riders were treated like real stars. They had a VIP tent at each show. This area was for riders, owners and sponsors, where they wine and dine you from morning to night, all for free. This is quite different than we find at our shows where we pay for every morsel. The other food stands were reasonably priced. Due to their consciousness over litter, a deposit had to be paid if you intended to walk anywhere with glass. Your entry fees In Europe are almost non-existent. On average it costs about $200 to take a grand prix horse to the show, which includes a stall, the entry and incidentals, while the same calibre show and classes in North America would cost $1,000 – $1,400.

In Europe most of the grooms live in their lories on the show grounds, and are fed by the shows, again for free. The washrooms also had a shower area, with some offering laundry facilities. Their life is much more basic and austere than that of a groom here. It is normal for the shows to book hotel rooms for the exhibitors and in some cases they even pay for them, but it appears that this practice is becoming more and more reserved for the top riders only. All of the shows have a very good shuttle transportation system for the riders and owners and media to go back and forth between the hotels – again this is a free service.

So one would ask, where does all the money come from? Well, they have a very active group of sponsors, and they have television coverage, most of which is live. It was actually possible for me to call a friend in Germany and tell them that Frankie was four away and they could tune in to watch her, not only in the grand prix, but the qualifying classes as well.

Horse Management

Most of the riders showed their horses very hard, but they had two, sometimes three different groups of horses. Therefore, they would show group one for two or three shows, then send them home to the paddocks for light hacking and bring in the next group. They showed under FEI rules, no tolerance for any medications. This is quite different from what is usual in North America. Here, we show week after week, often as many as 35 to 40 shows a year, but we use a lot of medications. In the U.S. we are still allowed to double deck certain NSAID drugs and we are allowed to use a host of drugs by merely filing a drug report with the steward. I suppose it is safe to say that they show their horses harder than we do, but with much more rest in between.

At the CSIO shows in Europe, it was common practice to have at least 10 national riders invited to compete. At our Canadian CSIO shows, on the other hand, we seem to only invite one or two national riders in addition to the team riders. I think this is a very sad state of affairs and that we should do something about it.

In Europe, for most of the top shows one must be invited to compete, and as I said, invitations are not easy to come by. By contrast, in North America one only need pay the entry fees. Many of our top riders ride three or four mounts in a grand prix. I have witnessed some riders using as many as eight horses in a class. I believe that this is very boring for even the most avid fan to watch and that may be one reason why we have not been successful in attracting television coverage.

Cash Transactions

When it came to check out time at every show we attended in Europe, the show secretary gave us our print out and then we were escorted into a very private locked room, where a treasurer, in possession of a strong box full of money, would count out our winnings in cash. In Helsinki, where I was chef d’equipe for the Canadian Team, I was actually paid over 70,000 Finish marks in cash. What a pocket full! The next morning I tried to get a local bank to exchange it for a bank cheque with no success. After a long and painful explanation, which I am sure the bank did not believe, I was able to convert it to U.S. dollars. All of the business at European shows, including entries and prize money, is transacted in cash. I did not see a single cheque change hands. I would say this is very different from the standard at our shows, where one would never see cash change hands and many of our shows even accept credit cards, some even issue their own.’

Business Focus

Everywhere we went in Europe, the footing was almost perfect. I must say they seem to really put in a special effort in that regard. I would say that is getting much better over here, but many of our show managers are more business oriented than horse oriented, so we have a ways to go yet. They had sponsor signs surrounding their rings, the riders, almost without exception, wore sponsor jackets and their horses wore sponsor scrims and saddle pads. The sport itself is a popular spectator event. It is actually watched by the public much the way baseball, hockey and football are watched over here. There are fans that travel from show to show, they cheer for their favourites and all seem to know when it is time to be quiet. People seeking autographs swarm the riders. At Spangenberg, after a class, my daughter, Frankie, started to walk back to the stable area, about a five-minute walk, and it took her over an hour and half wading through autograph seekers, to make it back it the barn.

Many, very large corporations sponsor riders and international teams of riders. Companies like Audi, Golden Toast, Aegon, Eriksson, Mobil dot Comm, Moet Chandon, D’Logistics and Golden Zack are just a few of the bigger ones. There are literally hundreds, even thousands of smaller and medium sized companies sponsoring both horse shows and riders. At most of the shows, it was common to find top riders from over 10 different countries, which gave each show an international flavour. Some of the names that were in attendance were: Ludger, Marcus and Meredith Beerbaum, Lars Neiberg, Marcus Ehning, Rodrigo Pessoa, Willi Melliger, Hugo Simon, Lars Pederson, John and Michael Whitaker, Jessica Kurton, Leslie Howard, Richard Spooner, Rene Tebbel, Malin Baryard, Jos Lansink, Ludo Philippaerts and Jeroen Dubbeldam. This list can give you an idea of how competitive things are over there. While we have great riders in North America, you rarely see a line up like the one above and that in itself creates an atmosphere that is almost unattainable anywhere in North America other than possibly at the Spruce Meadows Masters.

After careful comparison, it is obvious that the two systems are very different and I think that each can improve by taking a page from the other.

Originally published in the February 2002 edition of Horse Sport magazine.