Endurance GB to open competitive ride entries for 2021 season on 1 March after Government gives greenlight to resume outdoor sport in England 

• Demand expected to be high with first competitive rides of season expected to be on Sunday 11 April with Bibury Salt Way in the Cotswolds and at Tilford in Surrey. 
• Covid safety measures will be in place at all events – health pre- screening and full audit trail in place for all attendees.  
• Entry limits will be in place but will vary from ride to ride, depending on the social distancing capacity of the venues and routes and any additional government/landowner restrictions in place.  
• 2021 Golden Horseshoe Ride scheduled for 22-23 May will not take place. 

Endurance GB is expecting a huge demand when entries for the first rides of the 2021 season open on Monday 1 March, ready to kick off the competitive season a month later than normal on 11 April. A packed season of pleasure rides is also planned.

Covid safety measures will be in place at all events including health pre-screening and a full audit trail in place for all attendees. Due to restrictions on overnight stays, attendees will not be able to stay overnight at events until 17 May at the earliest, at which point it is hoped that camping and corralling will be allowed again.

The 2021 Golden Horseshoe Ride, scheduled for the weekend of the 22-23 May will not go ahead due to a combination of personal circumstances for the Chisholm family who are current organisers of the event and will be reopening their pub business on Dartmoor the previous weekend, and uncertainties over the impact of the restrictions on accommodation on Exmoor itself as the UK tourism picks up.

Esther Young, Endurance GB’s Operations Director said:

It will be vitally important for attendees to continue to follow the Covid safety measures, and we anticipate that we will be living with social distancing for much of the season.

Entry limits will be in place but will vary from ride to ride, depending on the social distancing capacity of the venues and routes and any additional government/landowner restrictions in place.”

Endurance riding, which by its nature involves individual combinations in wide open spaces, is ideally suited to social distancing and organisers are stressing that participants can have confidence in the safeguards in place. Training webinars are being run for ride organisers and event officials over February and March to help them to safely manage and risk assess their events.

Esther Young added:

We are confident in our measures. There were zero transmissions at post lockdown events last year, and we were running events safely right up to the Christmas lockdown.”

The resumption of outdoor sport means that the major highlights of the endurance calendar now look secure with King’s Forest Summer hosting the Inter-Regional Championships on 18-20 June and Cirencester home to the Home Internationals on 9-11 July. This year’s National Championship rides are set to take place at the season’s traditional grand finale, the British Horse Feeds’ and Golden Paste Company’s Red Dragon Festival of Endurance which is scheduled for a week earlier than usual from 24-27 September. The UK’s FEI ride calendar has not yet been confirmed pending updates on international travel arrangements.

Phil Nunnerley, Chair of Endurance GB said: “We welcome the Government’s announcement, and the re-opening of our sport is eagerly anticipated by everyone involved from riders to crews, organisers and volunteers. There is a great deal of excitement and momentum building for the 2021 season and we are anticipating a bumper year for the sport.

We are very pleased that many of our members and volunteers have now had their first Covid vaccination, and we would encourage everyone to take up the offer of a vaccination when it is offered to them.

We are as confident as we can be that the measures we have in place are agile enough to allow us to run under whatever restrictions the government set. We are optimistic for something approaching a full season, albeit with restrictions in place.

Our major championship rides are all held at large venues which lend themselves to social distancing. So, while these events may not have the usual social accompaniments this year, we are as confident as we can be that they will run, restrictions permitting.

The cancellation of the 2021 Golden Horseshoe Ride is a great pity but for entirely understandable reasons as the Chisholm family will be re-opening their business the previous weekend but there were also uncertainties connected with accommodation locally and attempts to find an alternative weekend later in the year had drawn a blank.”

Endurance GB members welcomed the news of the resumption of the sport in England as they step up training for the start of the new ride year. James Dickinson (pictured) and his 11-year-old gelding Magdy, emerged from the challenging 2020 season as overall highpoint champions achieving the highest total points for a horse and rider combination nationally. James who is based with his partner fellow endurance rider Katie Bedwin (pictured), in West Sussex, said:

Having heard the news regarding the COVID -19 restrictions I am cautiously looking forward to taking the horses out training and then on competing. We, horses included, have all missed getting out and about so this will be a welcome change.

Endurance GB’s calendar may still be subject to change and riders are being advised to check the sport’s website www.endurancegb.co.uk and social media regularly for updates. Welsh rides remain on hold at present pending the coming announcements from the Welsh First Minister on the plans to relax restrictions in Wales.

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Suzanne Ashton

Suzanne Ashton, Founder of Everything Horse (Est, 2012), has a BA Hons in Marketing Management and a Diploma in Equine Science. Suzanne has ridden and owned horses all her life and has twelve years of experience in marketing, writing, design, SEO, and website creation.