The inaugural Equimillion was held at SIEC over the weekend and while hot and windy conditions made Sunday a test of endurance for horse and rider, the weather was a lot kinder on Monday for the showjumping.
Click here to see all the results for show horse, dressage, eventing and showjumping.
There were good entries and while all competitors agreed there was room for improvement for the future, there were a lot of happy people and this is an event which has the potential to make a real change in the equestrian world in terms of thoroughbred participation.
One of the biggest criticisms from spectators and those interested in what was going on at Equimillion, but were not at the show, was the lack of easy results if you don’t have social media, there are still none on their website, you have to access through social media.
The same was said of the entry process with many people not knowing what was going on with this show if they did not have social media as it was not listed in the usual equestrian entry streams of Global, Equipe or Nominate.
This will surprise anyone under the age of 35, but there is a whole population out there that don’t have social media… they look at websites for their information and have no truck with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the like and for those people this show was invisible.
Then there are those that do have limited social media, but for whatever reason the algorithms used by Equimillion didn’t show any of the posts to them, go figure!
I’m no social media expert, far from it, but this show would have attracted a lot more entries if it had been better presented to the grass roots equestrian community and the concept of sponsorship had been made transparent from the start so connections could have been made more easily between competitors and potential sponsors.
That aspect needs a lot of thought for next year as that important connection between people that compete horses and people who have horses they wish to see rehomed with a purpose needs to be developed and nurtured. This event can go a long way to helping with that.
Click here to see all the results for show horse, dressage, eventing and showjumping.
For anyone that is interested, Pie and I had a pesky rail in each class to finish an overall sixth in the 90cm amateur showjumping class and for those that do have social media, there is video on Facebook of my last round with commentary from Jasmine which is priceless!
The next big thoroughbred show is Stonewall in November (16 – 19) for the Thoroughbred Sport Horse National Titles, so if you enjoyed and were interested in Equimillion keep your eye out for this one!
