Director's Blog - 25th August 2011

For all of those who entered our popular photo competition the winner has today been announced as Guy Pulleyn from Wigginton near York with his great photo of Kai Rueder riding Saaten Unions Charly Weld. Well done Guy! It was so difficult to choose a winner this year with so many great photos to choose from, but we hope to use as many photos as we can from the competition in the program and also the booking leaflet: keep your eyes peeled next year to see if your photo made it into the program somewhere!

I seem to have been very busy so far in August, and this coming weekend is just about to get a whole lot busier because it’s the Leeds Festival! The ‘early birds’, who pay a small premium to be allowed on site a day early have arrived today. So added to the noise of almost continual vehicle movements, we have 20,000 very excited voices in the Park pitching camp. The next few days will be a whirlwind for me, and I’ll probably not even know what day it is until around next Tuesday once the revellers have all gone home and the tidy up commences in earnest. The sun has been shining today, and hopefully the weather will be kind over the next few days.

I mentioned being busy this month, and think we have been away somewhere almost every weekend. We had a fantastic trip to Gatcombe and a thoroughly enjoyable, all be it wet, trip to Blair Horse Trials last weekend. In-between, Beth and I managed a couple of trips to Whinlatter in the Lake District mountain biking – we love it there, the trails are just such amazing fun!

Laura’s been having a very successful time on her lovely young horse Fitch. Having said this time last year that her eventing days were over, and she was only going to hunt, she’s done pretty well by completing five BE100 classes – placed 4th at Beckwithshaw – and last weekend they went clear in their first Novice at Richmond.  They’ve got a few more events over the next few weeks, but then will be getting on with Fitch’s main job, as Laura’s hunter! I know that Beth is also looking forward to getting out on Chester, when she can over the coming weeks and months. 

Back to the Horse Trials: we raised £30,395 for our chosen charities this year, a fantastic amount, and we are all very grateful to everyone’s generosity. In a bid to raise a further £10,000, Ogden of Harrogate have joined us in our efforts, and are selling bracelets in aid of the two funds, the local Yorkshire Regiment ‘Welfare for Wounded Warriors’ Benevolent Fund and the Household Cavalry Operational Casualties Fund, profits from the bracelet sales will go directly to the charities. Check out the ‘shop online’ tab at www.ogdenharrogate.co.uk for ‘Fashion Joins Forces’ to buy a bracelet and support our soldiers.

Director's Blog - 3rd August 2011

Somewhat annoyingly I’ve been neglecting this blog for far too long, and really must try harder to keep it at least vaguely up to date!

Anyhow for those who came to Bramham this year; I hope that you had a fantastic time! All of us in the office thoroughly enjoyed it, and at least for me the ‘blues feeling’ that ‘it’s all over for another year’ have now moved on, as with my Estate Manager’s hat on I am now pretty focussed on the forthcoming Leeds Festival (only 23 days to go!) – more later.

The whole team worked incredibly hard, to ensure that the Park looked as well as we could make it look when everyone arrived and that the Event and competition went smoothly. I must confess to having been quite nervous about some of the changes introduced this year, such as moving the Stables for the first time in over 30 years, not to mention the myriad of other changes across the site. Pleasingly most of the changes were well received, and we have a list of tweaks and alterations to implement next year. I am however delighted that it is only tweaks, rather than massive changes, because most changes worked pretty well.

Ian’s course was again fantastic, and we have already met a couple of times to look at some changes for next year’s route. David Evans and his team were a pleasure to work with and presented the course beautifully. A lot goes on behind the scenes that may not be noticed, for example Andrew our site manager religiously moves all of the water sprinklers (we run on the arenas) every few hours throughout every night to help ensure that the ground in the arenas and collecting rings is as good as we can make it. Mike and his team in the caravan site arrive several days early to mark out the site for the record number of caravans we had booked. It really is a team effort at Bramham, and that has to be one of the best things about working here; the way so many people work together towards the common goal of making Bramham bigger and better than the year before.

Talking of bigger, our attendance was up this year by roughly 3.5% to a total of 59,000 over the four days. Our biggest ever gate figure, so we are all very pleased. The fantastic weather on Thursday and Friday of course helped, and we have put in our request for next year’s weather already! 
The Festival build started about a week ago, and it is amazing how much they can do in just a week. Literally miles of fencing are already in place, the main stage is getting there and lorry load after lorry load of kit is streaming into the Park every day. Fortunately it is currently dry, so we don’t have any mud anywhere and hopefully it will remain dry to make the post show clear up easier.

Beth has been on various placements recently and is currently doing two weeks at the PDSA in Leeds, which means that she is actually living at home for a change – which is really nice. We have been indulging in our passion for the outdoors and have done plenty of mountain biking over the last couple of months and this weekend is our annual weekend trip to Gatcombe – my last ‘holiday’ before the Festival!

Keep a look out on Facebook as we’ll be announcing the winner of our photo competition later this month.

Director's Blog - 30th May 2011

To think that in seven days time the Event will be all but over as I write this blog on Monday morning, is quite scary!  The build, thus far, has gone very smoothly and most of the marquees are now up and built, as are the stables and much of the fencing that we put up around the site. Well, the fencing was up until the strong winds blew some of it over!

It is amazing how quickly the Park transforms; from just a few pegs in the ground marking out the site to barely a day or two later completed marquees, stables and shedding units everywhere.
Some of the larger trade stands have been arriving to get their marquees set up in advance of the ‘rush’ of trade stands that arrive over the coming couple of days.  Internal traffic management suddenly becomes very high on our Site Managers list of priorities trying to keep the trade stands to the hard roads and not letting them take short cuts across the carefully mown grass.

The Park and cross country course look well, with David and his team working hard to ensure that the fences look perfect – and they do!  Alongside David’s team the Bramham Park staff have been working tirelessly watering the course and mowing the Park – they have all worked very long days for quite some time now and have given up entire weekends to the cause, a well earned rest is not all that far away now.

The competitors will start to arrive from 1000 on Tuesday, into the relocated Stables Field (any competitors reading this: please follow the directional signs – do not try to come into the Park via the ‘old’ route!).  Holly the Stable Manager arrived on Sunday afternoon and has been busily setting up the stables and the compound to ensure that everything runs as seamlessly as possible come the Event itself.

I am now off for a meeting with the marquee contractors Accio, to walk through the build and to ensure that everything is exactly per the plans – which knowing their attention to detail, I’m sure it will be.

Director's Blog - 8th May 2011

As mentioned in the closing remarks of my last blog instalment, Facebook really is now the best way of keeping up with the very latest goings on at Bramham - especially if yours truly continues to update this blog as infrequently as I have been doing so recently!

Anyhow, since the last update a lot has happened, and about the only thing that we have not had is any rain! Although we have been blessed with blue skies and gorgeous sunshine for a number of weeks now, rain is required to make the grass grow. We always have the contingency of watering the course at Bramham, and this year will prove no exception. We have been watering some areas for several weeks already, mainly those areas where David and his team have carried out some ground works over the winter and the dry weather has meant that the grass seed (and in some places turf) has not come on as well as I would have liked. More recently we rented in two Verti-drain machines, which basically punch small holes into the ground so that the water gets right into the ground and to the grass's roots. The lack of rain had meant that the surface of the ground was so hard that water would not have soaked in well. But following the work of the verti-drains, the rain that is now forecast and the watering which we will continue to do - the going should be fantastic.

Work in the office always picks up around this time, and the team downstairs have been very busy sorting out the packs of information and tickets that get sent out to our small army of volunteers and Officials - without whose assistance we could not put the Event on. The telephone Box Office has been open for a week now, and bookings are flooding in. The best and simplest way to book in advance remains via the internet though. There is a chance that the Caravan Park may sell out for the first ever time, and as such if you are planning on coming to camp I would recommend booking soon to avoid potential disappointment.

Various site changes are planned for this year largely as a result of bottle necks and traffic jams that have developed as the Event has grown over the last few years, but also due to changes to the Cross Country Course - including relocating the Start/Finish. I am looking forward to seeing how everything pans out, although as always with changes, there is a small degree of trepidation. I would love a time machine so I could watch how everything goes, but then nip back to now just incase there are any tweaks still needed!!

The only downside of my dual role of Estate Manager and Event Director, is that at this time of year when the Horse Trials are getting really busy it would be great to be able to put everything else on the Estate ‘on pause'. However that would be too simple, and everything else on the Estate is progressing at its usual rapid and busy pace including some exciting renovation works to the leaking T-Pond in the gardens. This is a fairly massive undertaking, and the project is scheduled to commence immediately after the Leeds Festival.

Closer to home Beth has been in ‘exam hell' for the last two weeks, only broken by a wedding last weekend in Suffolk, but she has now finished her exams - at last and will be at home for the next few weeks before she starts a year of assorted veterinary work placements and then graduates this time next year.

The coming days and weeks will be very busy, but equally exciting, and I promise to try and update this more often!!

Director's Blog - 1st February 2011

Snow seems to be becoming a bit of a theme at Bramham for the winter course walk with our TD's, and this time around was no exception. Although who would ever have thought that we would have had quite so much snow quite so early in the winter, and that it would last so long? Both Christian (Persson) and Philip (Surl) liked Ian's proposed alterations to the course, admittedly some more significant than others such as the relocation of the start/finish - as hinted at by Ian in his recent piece in Horse and Hound.

Needless to say we are all very excited about the changes to the course, and David Evans and his hard working team have been busy around the Park since before the snow came. They have worked tirelessly, and without a hint of complaint, through the worst of weathers. The course is transformed already, with two massive new complexes built, despite there still being some 17 or so weeks until the Event!

The portables used this last year are now repaired; new ones built, and they are all now in storage until much nearer the Event when they will be placed around the course to Ian's precise specification.

Work in the office continues apace, with a real focus on sponsorship. Quite simply, without the generous support of our various sponsors the Event could not be staged. We are very lucky because a lot of our sponsors have been involved for several years, and many appear keen to return this year.

As well as this, a lot of time has been spent working on the site layout, and various changes that are required due to the relocation of the start/finish. Our long suffering Site Manager, Andrew Munro Seear, has produced several draft layouts all of which have thus far been sent back to him with a list of questions and suggestions - although each version is getting much closer to what I have in my mind! There are space, budgetary and logistical constraints that we must work within, but I still have a very long list of ‘when it's sponsored' or ‘when we can afford it'...

Despite the early snow, we are still only at 1^st February, so there is a little while yet before the grass starts to grow and the weather gets milder. Christmas however seems like an absolute age ago already. Both Beth and I had a very nice Christmas; this year for me it was a first as I was away from the Pritchard family home in Sussex and Christmas was spent with Beth's family near Richmond - although we dashed off skiing late on Boxing Day and had an amazing week away with ten of our friends. A week after we got back, Laura in the office grabbed a weeks skiing, and judging by the colour of her face when she got back had better weather!

The Box Office opened today, and we have already had a flurry of bookings which is great news and we delighted that people are committed to coming to Bramham already. We offered an Official Event Programme to the first ten people to book online and this has proved very popular...keep checking the website for other ways to win some freebies...

We have also recently joined the 21^st Century - at a recent meeting with Welcome to Yorkshire (our title sponsors) they suggested that Facebook and Twitter really was the way forward. Now, I can understand Facebook having had an account for a year or two - but must confess to struggling slightly with Twitter... Despite my technophobia we have set up a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and these will be the best ways to keep up to date with all of the very latest Welcome to Yorkshire Bramham International Horse Trials news.