Celebrating 20 years of British Dressage

2018 is a huge year for British Dressage, not only are we unveiling new Championships, sending our super seniors and paras to the World Equestrian Games, developing our U21 international teams, launching our BD Youth strategy and focusing on building better foundations for our grassroots riders, but it’s also the official 20th anniversary of BD!

To celebrate the occasion we’ll be holding numerous events throughout the year, with exciting opportunities for all of our members to get involved in. The first of these we’d like to introduce is a special offer from our membership team who are kindly giving away a FREE MEMBERSHIP to the 20th person registering every month this year. Whether you’re a brand new member joining for the first time or simply renewing for another season of competition, any registration is eligible.

We are delighted to announce our first two winners for January and February… So congratulations to Susan Davis from Surrey and Fiona Gillespie from West Sussex, you will both receive a free year’s membership with BD!

We’re also delighted to unveil a brand new logo for the year to represent a fantastic 20 years of training and competing with British Dressage. We’ll be using this logo on our social media pages, Championship event plaques and any correspondence to our members.

Looking back at the last 20 years it is incredible to see how far the sport has come in such a short space of time. Back in 1998 we were delighted to even qualify for the Olympic Games, but such are the standards that have been set our expectations are now so much higher.

Our para equestrian dressage team incredibly remains unbeaten over the last two decades on the international stage, from Atlanta in 1996 through to Gothenberg last year, a phenomenal record. The medal haul for our seniors and paras continues to grow with every Championship and we have also won ten medals at Pony level in the last decade alone.

Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro shot to international fame at London 2012 and carried British dressage into the mainstream sport spotlight. Since then BD membership has grown from 13,500 to over 17,500 members. We were granted charitable status in 2014 and established a commercial trading arm to generate more revenue that could be reinvested in the sport. With a record number of well over 250,000 starters in 2017, the sport continues to reach new heights.

Turning our attention to grassroots, with the introduction of Quest Club, our Associated Championships and our new Bronze Championships, British Dressage without doubt offers the chance for riders of all levels to enjoy training and competing. 

Speaking about the big occasion, Honorary Patron Carl Hester said, “Who’d have thought 20 years ago that British Dressage would be at the top of the sport on the world stage? With participation and membership at an all-time high alongside the outstanding performances of our international teams and individuals over the last decade, we can look forward to the next 20 years with great anticipation. May I be the first to wish British Dressage a very happy birthday!”

Across social media and our e-newsletters we’ll be announcing lots of competitions throughout the year for our followers to win a variety of fantastic prizes! If you’re not already following our channels please click the links at the bottom of a page to keep up to date with all our dressage news and keep an eye out for those great prize winning opportunities.

There’s a lot more to celebrate over the year but for now all that’s left to say is watch this space – we’ve got plenty of exciting news announcements to make over the next few months, when we’ll be celebrating all that’s happened and all that’s still to come for British Dressage.