BLENHEIM PALACE INTERNATIONAL HORSE TRIALS
All Images: © Peter Nixon/Nixon Photo
Galloping ahead Ian Renton, regional managing director, and David Mackinnon, head of operations, discuss The Jockey Club’s new role as organiser of Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials The Jockey Club’s long and W hile distinguished history in horseracing
is world-famous, its delivery of this year’s Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials (BPIHT) was the organisation’s first venture into the wider spectrum of horse sport. Ian Renton, The Jockey Club’s regional managing director, is BPIHT’s new event director. He hopes that The Jockey Club’s involvement will help bridge the gap between horseracing and eventing, which have different governing bodies. He explained: “It is very exciting for us to get involved with massive international horse trials and for us to be able to apply The Jockey Club’s expertise and experience to such a thrilling sport. “All equestrian events can learn from each other. Both sports have two different governing bodies so I hope that The Jockey Club and BPIHT can bridge that gap.”
SHARING EXPERTISE
Renton saw Blenheim Palace’s invitation to tender for the running of BPIHT as an exciting and interesting opportunity; an opportunity for The Jockey Club to share its operational and commercial expertise. “It’s been brilliant to use our team, who have already done a huge amount at Cheltenham. It’s exciting for us to have a bite at something as exciting as this. “The budget we have is not the same as Cheltenham, as the revenue is not there, and we have to balance the books, but we do want to increase expenditure so that we can increase the facilities.”
HUGE JIGSAW
The Jockey Club does have plans for BPIHT. However, firstly, it was important to deliver on this year’s event, which did feature several new elements. These were
overseen by David Mackinnon, regional head of operations at The Jockey Club, who was supported on site by Rebecca Elvin, operations manager, Kenny MacDonald, technical event manager, and Rupert Bassadone, founder of Event Site Design, who was responsible for site layout and site management. Mackinnon said: “We wanted to focus on improving the experience for owners, riders and visitors so there have been no dramatic changes to the footprint at BPIHT; we’ve used the same areas, but we are using them differently.” Mackinnon said that he and his team have had a real opportunity to try things out, develop the course and event throughout. For example, when The Jockey Club was appointed to deliver BPIHT, it appointed an advisory committee. Its advice impacted operational measures. Mackinnon explained: “One of dressage’s disciplines was in a ‘peripheral’ area… a car park. The committee advised that for a prestigious event they felt that the car park was not the right location. So, we looked at the site plans with fresh eyes and moved some of the competition to the main arena.
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