NEWs

2025 Fixtures list announcement

The news you’ve all been waiting for is finally here! British Eventing is delighted to announce the fixtures schedule for 2025 which kicks off on Saturday March 1st at Epworth and Poplar Park.

After collaborating closely with event organisers and listening to your feedback through the Fixtures Review and Here to Help Survey, we’ve successfully implemented significant changes to the timing and placement of events and are pleased to share some exciting updates to our fixtures calendar. These adjustments are designed to provide more competition opportunities for our members to contribute to the long-term sustainability of the sport, focussing on reducing travel times where possible and taking into account the impact of the weather on the early part of the season.

Challenges and Good News
The creation of a balanced fixtures calendar is no small task. While we strive to meet the needs of our members, it is important we are mindful of geographic locations and proximity to other events, as well as the constraints of land availability. Many of the venues we work with are also working agricultural sites, meaning events must align with landowners’ broader business models.

Replacement fixtures
While it is disappointing when events drop out of the calendar, we respect that this is the prerogative of landowners and organisers. Our role is to ensure, where possible, that high-quality replacements are available. Some good examples of this for the 2025 season are;

  • Horseheath returns on the eastern side of the country in March (22nd & 23rd) under a new organisational team.
  • Barbury Castle makes a return to the domestic calendar, replacing the Cirencester Park (1) fixture in March and organised by the Cirencester Park team.
  • Penrith continues to deliver in Cumbria in 2025 with two dates under the new team that took over the Frenchfield site in September of 2024. The 2025 dates are 19th & 20th April and 13th & 14th September.
  • The Chatsworth fixture, which has come out of the calendar for 2025 while they re-evaluate their options, has been replaced by Belsay, who will offer the same FEI and National classes, to be held on17th & 18th May.
  • Homme House, which ran in early August, has had some significant challenges in recent years and will, for 2025, be replaced by the popular Chepstow venue on the 4th & 5th August.
  • 2024 saw the final event run at Blair Castle in Scotland. Scone Palace have been handed the baton and will run their inaugural event on 21st to 24th August 2025.

Improvements and new venues
As well as a programme of replacements, we are always working with new venues and landowners to increase our offering and are pleased to announce new venues next season, while our existing venues continue to look to improve and adapt to challenges in weather and requests from members, with some notable highlights for 2025 including;

  • In 2025, Scotland sees the welcome introduction of a new event at Valleyfield Farm, Twynholm, to be known as ‘South of Scotland’, held on 14th & 15th June.
  • The spring three-day event at Bicton Arena in the South West, will host the GBR leg of the Nations Cup in 2025, at CCI4*S level, on 22nd to 25th May.
  • Oasby (1) has reduced its cross-country day offering, to try and protect itself from weather challenges, and has moved to offer another fixture Oasby (2) at BE80 to BE100 over the Easter weekend (18th & 19th April).
  • Little Downham will be offering a day of grassroots eventing at BE80 to BE100 level on 14th June.
  • The venue at Solihull has had a change of dates in 2025, moving into the Shelford dates of 24th & 25th May and 23rd & 24th August.
  • Swalcliffe Park will run an event earlier in the year on 12th & 13th July, in addition to their October event, to help deal with the demand of membership shown in 2024.
  • Portman has moved from April to 19th & 20th July after having struggled with weather and ground in the past.
  • The South West sees a few changes in 2025. Chard Equestrian Centre will be running another fixture in the Spring on 18th & 19th April, and along with Kingston Maurward College, will be adding Novice classes to their schedules. Sadly Bricky will no longer be hosting BE Horse Trials, so Bovington will move earlier in the Autumn to the Bricky fixture on 4th & 5th October, as well as moving later in the Spring for their first fixture on 3rd and 4th May.
  • Frickley Park International will continue with their pilot for the BE90 and BE100 Long Format competition and will be adding a BE80 section (14th to 17th August).
  • In a similar vein, the BE90 and BE100 Long Format (with Roads & Tracks and Steeplechase) hosted by Bicton Arena on the last weekend of the season, will also play host to a pilot BE80 section in 2025 – giving you the whole season to get fit!

The last word on 2025 Fixtures goes to Blenheim Palace who will be hosting the Senior European Championships in 2025, a perfect venue to showcase a European Championships and show off the best of our British talent on 18th to 21st September.

Financial Updates and Member Support
This year, the Abandonment Support Fund has proven to be a great success. We are pleased to announce that the refund percentage for members will increase from 60% to 70%. This improvement was made possible by increased contributions from organisers.

Late Fees
Additionally, we’ve introduced measures to support members affected by event cancellations. If an event is abandoned, members who commit to rerouting to a new event within three days of the abandonment, and within two weeks of the original event, will not incur a late fee.

Entry Fees
We’ve also worked with organisers to implement a CPI-linked increase on entry fees of 2% for National classes to help manage rising costs. For FEI classes in 2025, organisers will have the flexibility to set entry fees reflective of their business models, event types, and operational costs. We trust organisers will set fair and reasonable fees for these classes.

Laura de Wesselow, Joint Chair of the BEOA, said: “We have worked closely with British Eventing to offer the best possible value to members in the current climate of rising costs, not just for organisers but for owners and competitors too. The 2% increase in entry fees next season is in line with the CPI which is fair and reasonable.”

 Encouraging Early Commitments
We’ve observed a growing trend of members committing to events much closer to the event, which causes challenges for our Organisers and regrettably sometime leads to events being cancelled. To try and address this, we are introducing Pay-Pal credit as a payment option. This will allow members to register for events earlier while managing payment over a period of time, easing cash flow concerns and providing earlier certainty for Event Organisers.

Moving Forward
These changes reflect our commitment to balancing the needs of members, organisers, and landowners while ensuring the continued growth and sustainability of British Eventing. We look forward to the season ahead and thank everyone for their continued support and collaboration.

Rosie Williams, CEO commented: “I’m truly excited about the extensive changes we’re implementing, and I hope the community shares in this excitement. We’re also continuing the QR code feedback system, which has received over 5,000 responses. This invaluable input has played a key role in shaping many of the changes we’ve made. We are also working on several collaborations and new trials that we will be announcing in due course.”

The Fixtures Team & Committee and Stakeholders are working on the International and Championship Calendar for 2026 to 2031 and organising teams are currently in a tender process to set this calendar. Results will be available in the early part of 2025.

View the fixtures calendar here. Please note that the website is updating at the moment and will take time for all the fixtures to upload.

In the meantime you can view the full fixtures calendar and further details of which classes are running on each day here.

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