Plans and opportunities: BD at the David Broome Event Centre

British Dressage and The David Broome Event Centre team met recently to develop a plan on how to best utilise the world-class Welsh venue in the regional and national dressage calendar going forward. The multi-discipline venue, which dressage competitors affectionately call Mount Ballan, runs around 150 show days per year and dressage continues to grow in popularity locally.

BD RDO for Wales Vanessa Archer, Head of Business Development Sue Harrison and Welsh Chairman Stephen Arnett met with James Broome, who manages the family centre. “We want to further develop Mount Ballan and running major competitions is a key part of the plan,” said James. “For the team here, the smaller, one-day dressage competitions are becoming increasingly difficult to run due to the time involved but we don’t want them to disappear from our calendar completely.” 

With this in mind, James and Vanessa would be delighted to hear from anyone in the area who’d be interested in running one day dressage competitions in conjunction with the venue.

In the summer, Mount Ballan will host the Welsh Dressage Championships over the weekend of 14/15 July and the Welsh BD Regional Championships 3 – 5 August. James has big plans for the Welsh Championship and wants to expand the show into a celebration of dressage for the region. The scheduled Hickstead Dressage Masters Regional Final on 6 June will also run and it’s hoped to run Quest classes alongside to provide riders with an extra chance to earn points towards the Welsh leader board. 

“British Dressage members have been so loyal to us over the last 12 years and we want to continue to support them as they have us. It’s been great to see dressage in Wales grow over the last decade and I’d like to think that Mount Ballan has played a part in that success and going forward, we want to continue help build equestrian sport in Wales,” added James. 

Vanessa Archer concluded in saying; “BD is fully supportive of James’ future plans and we’ll continue to work with him and his team to ensure Mount Ballan remains a BD venue for years to come. They’ve been instrumental in the massive boom for dressage in Wales and I’m really excited to help deliver James’ plans for their big summer shows as they always provide a top-class experience for competitors.

"The show on 24 February will be the final one-day show run by the Mount Ballan team for the time being. If there’s anyone interested in running one-day BD shows at Mount Ballan, please do get in touch. It’s a great opportunity for someone, please do contact James at james@cricklands.com or myself at vanessa.archer@britishdressage.co.uk to discuss it.”