Central Scotland Horse Trials (CSHT) will run at its new venue of Dalkeith Palace only once in 2014.
The news will come as a blow to riders from Scotland and the north of England who have not only been eagerly awaiting competition at the new venue following the loss of the CSHT fixture at Scone Palace but who hadgreeted the 2014 fixture list and its greater number of competitions with excitement.
Amidst the update, CSHT has confirmed it will run at Dalkeith as scheduled for its first fixture on April 19 and April 20, this year.
The event will cater for riders all the way up from BE80 (T) level to open Novice level.
However, due to a reshuffle of the fixtures list by event organisers and affiliated sporting body British Eventing (BE), CHST will no longer run on its second date of July 19 and July 20.
Instead, in a “huge setback” forthe CSHTorganising committee,this calendar date has now been awarded to ‘Little’ Hopetoun (2), which in turn has moved away from a date clash with international fixture Burgham, which lies just over the Border in Northumberland, and which shares many of the same competitors.
Announcing the calendar changes, a spokesperson for BE said the decisions had been made in the best interests of its membership body.
The spokespersonsaid: “To enable Burgham International Horse Trials (2) to run at an optimum time for members in the region, the British Eventing fixtures team have unfortunately had to make changes to the calendar of events in the region.
“As part of this change, James Oakden and the organising committee of the Central Scotland Horse Trials at Dalkeith Country Park have agreed not to run their July fixture to enable the organisers of Hopetoun (2) to move their grassroots level competition to run on that weekend.”
BE chief executive Mike Etherington-Smith added: “We are extremely appreciative of the decision made by James and the team at Dalkeith, helping to provide the best for the members in the Scottish and Northern regions.
“My thanks also go to Stuart Buntine for his flexibility in moving Hopetoun (2).
“The changes made were vital to enable the events in the region to be spread apart on the calendar and increase the opportunity for riders to compete.”
Looking forward to the move to Dalkeith after suffering the loss of long-term Perthshire venue Scone, Fife farmer and CSHT organiser James Oakdenrevealed his committee were “bitterly disappointed” by the decision to award their second fixturedate to Hopetoun.
He said: “Due to a date congestion, we have been asked not to run the second Central Scotland fixture which was schedule for July 19 and 20 at the new venue of Dalkeith Park, outside Edinburgh.
“We are striving to establish Central Scotland in its new venue at Dalkeith Country Park and to establish a good working relationship with the Buccleuch Estate and this late change is a serious setback.”
The schedule for the 2014 CSHT fixture at Dalkeith is now provisionally available on the BE website.
The cross country courses are expected to be at maximum distance for all the classes.
Mr Oakden has detailed these courses will be designed to be encouraging although there will be no water for the 2014 event.