In one month the first BE Arena Eventing competition will get the new look series underway for 2017. In a change from last year BE are hosting ten qualifying competitions with eligible riders going forward to contest in the BE Arena Eventing Championships in early March.
Open to both BE members and non-members and run at BE80, BE90 and BE100 level, competitors first complete a round of show jumps immediately followed by the cross country elements in an arena, finishing over a joker fence set at 10cms higher than the rest of the course.
Previously run as a point series, the new format starts at Houghton Hall Equestrian Centre in Cambridge on 7th January 2017 and takes in a further nine venues with the top 15% of each level from each of these qualifying venues eligible to take part in the Championship. Hosted on 11th March 2017 at Aston Le Walls, Daventry, those Championship combinations will also be joined by the top three from the BE90 and BE100 JAS Championship taking place at Hartpury College on the 19th February 2017.
British Eventing Chief Executive David Holmes commented, “We are looking forward to hosting BE Arena Eventing, with its new qualifying process for 2017, and helping riders prepare for the year ahead. The series provides another out of season opportunity for our members, along with non-members, to add to our well established Jumping & Style and Jump Training competitions.”
Run for the last two years as a point accumulator and organised by individual venues, the 2017 event has been reformatted to bring the qualifying events under BE, “Due to the tight timescale of the pilot it has not been possible to secure as good a geographical spread as we would have liked. However we will endeavour to roll out the Arena Eventing series in more venues in the coming years to enable as many BE members and non-members access to this new series as possible,” added David.
Entries open shortly and will be available on the Fixtures and Results page of the website www.britisheventing.com.
Championship riders will compete for a fantastic prize with the winners of each class taking home a Full BE Membership for 2017 and Horse Season Pass plus a £100 training voucher with second and third place both taking home training vouchers to the value of £75 and £50 respectively.
Further information can be found at www.britisheventing.com/arenaeventing.
