After a year’s absence the Brechin Castle Horse Trials are set to make a welcome return to Scotland’s event calendar early in 2014.
Taking to the helm of the event’s new organising committee James Helyer who also runs popular neighbouring British Eventing competition Kirriemuir at his home farm of Auchlishie explained how they plan to resurrect the trials like a phoenix from the ashes.
“One of the first steps we took was to bring Andrew Hunter north as a new course builder and designer.
“We had a very productive walk around not only Brechin, where we got a good grasp of the lie of the land, but also to take the opportunity to give the courses at Kirrie a fresh look and feel,” said James, speaking to The Courier recently.
Andrew was one of a team of course builders, collectively known as London Eventing, responsible for the building of the cross country course at Greenwich for the London Olympic Games.
“We walked the courses and formulated what is in essence a two-year plan,” explained James.
“Obviously from a standing start we can’t really make any particularly drastic changes at Brechin. But we will be replacing many of the weathered and rotten fences, logs etc, and introducing new portable fences to give the course a refreshed appearance,” he said.
Also new on the agenda for next year is some revitalisation of the long-established tracks at Kirrie.
“We’ve got plans for a new complex and some major alterations to what I think of as the ‘middle section’ of the courses at Auchlishie,” said James.
This will involve creating a variety of changeable options which will flow onwards after the drop fence at the top of the hill within the loop contained by the stone dyke wall.
“With a number of different events running at Auchlishie throughout the year, as well as the British Eventing fixture, we want to be able to provide variation to the courses throughout the year,” said James.
“The majority of the work is being done after the dyke wall fence and will include new jumps into the water complex.”
According to James, both he and Andrew are in complete agreement of the importance of keeping events going north of the Border.
“We don’t want to see Brechin lost from the calendar it’s a fantastic venue so we are doing our best to add something to the sport in Scotland,” he said.
“Obviously we do not have a bottomless pot of money to do everything we want immediately, but we do want to secure the future of the event for Scotland’s riders.”
James said he hopes funding might be made available from British Eventing to assist with the upgrade of the courses at Brechin.
“As ever, the sport is also heavily reliant on support and sponsorship.
“We would be very grateful to hear from any companies that might be able to help support the event,” he said.
To cater for competitors over and above grass-roots level, an intermediate section has been added at the first of three fixtures which will once again be held at Burgie.
The intermediate class at the event from April 26-27 is also supported by further intermediate and advanced classes at northern English events Belsay and Burgham respectively.
As revealed by The Courier in August, three-day international competition at one and two-star level will also be a new feature of Hopetoun in June.
Meanwhile, Floors Castle will run new CIC* and CIC** classes in May with fresh courses for these feature competitions designed by Ian Stark.
Central Scotland Horse Trials will also launch its inaugural event at Dalkeith Park, on April 19 and 20.