While no-one has ever pretended there will be physical legacy for equestrianism from the £40 million-odd temporary build at Greenwich, prospects for an improvement in existing facilities through secondary Olympic spend have taken a hit.
First, Greenwich council has still not given the green light to the new riding school at nearby Shooters Hill due to have started next year, with opponents saying the site is a protected communal space.
And now, with only 12 months to go, it has emerged that not one of Britain’s 60 Locog-approved Pre-Games Training Camps has been booked by an overseas equestrian team.
Back in 2008 there was optimism that the much-vaunted PGTC scheme might at least lead to an upgrade in facilities at existing venues through lucrative deals with long-stay visitors. Several made capital improvements, such as putting a roof on their outdoor arena. These have benefitted their year-round clientele but would never have been considered but for the Olympic “link” in a niche industry that struggles day-to-day with the high cost of business rates and animal feedstuffs.
Some equestrian venues were components of county council consortium PGTC bids that have spent tens, maybe hundreds of thousands trying to grab a slice of the Olympic action. But now, it seems, equestrian spend has gone in one, irrecoverable direction – through overtures to overseas teams that were never considering UK PGTCs in the first place.
Bookings are relatively buoyant in non-equestrian sports, with 93 across 540 PGTCs and Locog are rightly hopeful things will accelerate.
However, as equestrianism is Euro-centric, elite overseas riders have had permanent bases in Britain and the Low Countries for decades. Demand for PGTCs was negligible, even before the application process began. The International Equestrian Federation readily acknowledged this scenario when I asked them this week.
In fairness Locog warned applicants that they proceeded with any capital improvements at their own risk, by why “approve” so many? The 60 equestrian PGTCs represent 10% of the total across all 29 Olympic sports, and many were remote from the prep events.
The Paralympics have provided two bookings, though one is to a venue with existing para links and the other to an internationally renowned centre that hardly needed further citation.
All 60 understandably trumpeted their 2012 “endorsements” in spring 2008. Now there is disenchantment. I helped Horse & Hound magazine to research this week’s study. Kevin Butchart, proprietor of Woodredon Equestrian Centre near Epping Forest, echoed many, saying PGTCs were “primarily a paper exercise to tick boxes, with no plan to achieve.”
Now that another door on physical legacy has shut, there will be all the more pressure on Greenwich to deliver a different sort of boost. Unfortunately, the international community is about to see two examples of what a mere £15 million could have done for existing equestrian sites – at Rotterdam, which unveils its shiny new grandstand at next week’s European dressage championships , and Luhmuehlen - Germany’s principal horse trials site – that has enjoyed a state-aided transformation for the European eventing.
The late Douglas Bunn effectively subsidised Britain’s international show jumping venue for 50 years at Hickstead. Now his children are doing the same, last winter finding £750,000 to resurface Hickstead’s main arena and thereby ensure we still have a site competent to host a five-star (top tier) Nations Cup.
If London 2012 does, as is hoped, generate more interest in riding, the obligation to deliver this intangible legacy will still fall on Hickstead and the hundreds of other devoted proprietors that have provided the supporting calendar from their own earned income for generations. They will forever be taken for granted.
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