British Dressage (BD) is celebrating a “flying start” to the year, with membership and horse registrations hitting record levels.
The governing body has exceeded the 18,000-member mark for the first time, with 18,132 members active in February. This year’s Petplan Equine Winter Area Festivals have also received record entries and starters.
During the pandemic its membership fell to just over 14,000, attributed to the multiple lockdowns during the first 12 months of the crisis. However, BD received “incredible support” from its stakeholder groups, and numbers recovered to pre-pandemic levels within 10 weeks of the resumption of activity last spring.
“It has been quite a remarkable recovery from where we were at the height of the pandemic, and to reach such a significant membership milestone is a tremendous achievement for BD staff, our volunteers, venues and officials, as well as all of our competitors, who have worked so hard to get the sport back on track,” said British Dressage CEO Jason Brautigam. “It has been a real team effort, for which I’m both immensely proud and grateful.
“We took great care to safeguard the sport during the pandemic and endeavoured to keep the BD community informed throughout. As we finally emerge from the crisis, it is satisfying to see that these collective efforts have paid dividends, meaning we are in a strong position to reinvest in the sport we all love, for the benefit of all participants.
“Hopefully with COVID now behind us, we can continue to develop British Dressage in line with the strategic plan that we launched last year, with a number of projects coming to fruition soon. We will see the first cohorts complete their training plans and able to book onto the new judge education system in April, when we will also be launching an exciting new professional package for coaches, demonstrating our commitment to delivering high standards of professionalism and integrity in our sport.
“We have started the year extremely well and have much to look forward to over the year ahead, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their continued input and support.”
