Equestrianism: Harrogate on the map after Lottery award
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The 1999 European Show Jumping Championships are likely to take place at the Yorkshire Agricultural Society's showground at Harrogate, thanks to an award of pounds 481,880 from lottery funds.
The English Sports Council, who administer the World Class Events Programme of the Lottery Sports Fund, has agreed in principle to the payment. It remains for the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) to award the championships to Britain, which seems probable now that lottery funding has been agreed.
The last time a major international show jumping title was decided in Britain was back in 1982 at Hickstead, where Paul Schockemohle won the second of his three individual European titles. The FEI Bureau, now meeting in Toronto, is expected to back the Harrogate bid as a means of returning Britain to the centre of the show jumping stage.
Harrogate has never yet hosted a major international show, but it has all the necessary facilities - as acknowledged when it was part of the British bid that finished second for the 1998 World Equestrian Games.
"The site is ideal," Simon-Brooks-Ward, who has helped in negotiations for Lottery funds, said. "It has a delightful oval-shaped arena as well as permanent stabling and catering facilities.''
Brooks-Ward, who runs the Royal Windsor and Olympia shows, will be Championship Director of the big event if the plans reach fruition.
The submission to the Sports Council was prepared by Andrew Finding (secretary general of the British Show Jumping Association), Bill Henson (director of Burghley and Bramham Three-Day Events) and Brooks-Ward.
Sir Rodney Walker, chairman of the English Sports Council, has already given his encouragement by describing the Harrogate project as "precisely the type of event that the World Class Programme was established to support."
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