Scribbler
05-01-2007, 08:30 PM
Just musing on the subject of spring events...better than working.
Belinda commented on scarcity of spring events a while back.
Against organising spring events:
Risk of bad weather cancelling the whole thing
Risk of not many people turning up, especially for costly open track if ground is bad
Risk of neighbours very cross when loose horse gets in with the sheep/gallops over nicely emerging corn
For organising spring events:
Easy to persuade those nice MFHA people to give you an open qualifier provided your track is up to scratch
Possibility of attracting lots of entries if can be run as a hunter trial too, getting lots of dosh for your hunt.
One thing that might add more pros than cons is the changing nature of farming (do try and stay awake).
There's various grants available for leaving stubble over the winter and ploughing up in spring (April is such a nice time for seed drilling)
There's even more grants available for putting in nice wide strips of grass around arable fields.
There's also one or two grants for recreating grassland/meadowland (and even better for restoring/replanting) lovely hedges.
OK, once Mr Farmer has taken these grants he's not supposed to make more money out of the land but there are certain exceptions for equestrian events and for charitable causes.
Much of the land that is suitable for these 'green' farming methods is the type of shallow, sandy soils found precisely in the places that are a bit short of team chases ie Lincs/Yorks and parts of the south!
Admittedly this is not going to fill the gaps in the calendar this year - it takes time to get any team chase course going, let alone where land use is changing, but wouldn't it be worth nagging someone in your hunt to give it some thought?
Belinda commented on scarcity of spring events a while back.
Against organising spring events:
Risk of bad weather cancelling the whole thing
Risk of not many people turning up, especially for costly open track if ground is bad
Risk of neighbours very cross when loose horse gets in with the sheep/gallops over nicely emerging corn
For organising spring events:
Easy to persuade those nice MFHA people to give you an open qualifier provided your track is up to scratch
Possibility of attracting lots of entries if can be run as a hunter trial too, getting lots of dosh for your hunt.
One thing that might add more pros than cons is the changing nature of farming (do try and stay awake).
There's various grants available for leaving stubble over the winter and ploughing up in spring (April is such a nice time for seed drilling)
There's even more grants available for putting in nice wide strips of grass around arable fields.
There's also one or two grants for recreating grassland/meadowland (and even better for restoring/replanting) lovely hedges.
OK, once Mr Farmer has taken these grants he's not supposed to make more money out of the land but there are certain exceptions for equestrian events and for charitable causes.
Much of the land that is suitable for these 'green' farming methods is the type of shallow, sandy soils found precisely in the places that are a bit short of team chases ie Lincs/Yorks and parts of the south!
Admittedly this is not going to fill the gaps in the calendar this year - it takes time to get any team chase course going, let alone where land use is changing, but wouldn't it be worth nagging someone in your hunt to give it some thought?