Addington Manor Equestrian Centre director Tim Price has accused British Dressage (BD) of unfairly restricting competition between venues after he was unable to reschedule his High Profile Show.
The Buckinghamshire venue’s show (20-22 January) was snowed off and Mr Price wanted to reschedule it for 1-3 March.
But BD said that date would be too close to Myerscough Premier League (6-8 March). An alternative date could not be agreed.
Now Mr Price has told H&H he is considering dropping BD shows and is writing to the BD board to complain of “restrictive practices” — anti-competitive behaviour.
“BD will not allow competition between centres. They told us if we ran the week before Myerscough fewer people would go there,” said Mr Price.
“But if riders would rather come to us why should we be the ones to drop out?”
He said the centre spent a great deal of money ensuring that the arena surfaces could be used for the show — which was cancelled as riders could not get there — and will lose more in returned entries by not being able to reschedule.
“Due to the existing bookings at Addington and the already congested calendar in February and early March, BD was unable to find a mutually agreeable date,” said Paul Graham of BD.
If Addington were to stop running BD competitions, and the High Profile Show in particular, it would be a “real blow” to the British scene, says Pammy Hutton in her H&H column.
“I couldn’t be more disappointed to lose this show — it’s a great early season barometer for so many,” she said.
This news story was first published in the current issue of H&H (7 February 2013)
