It would have been the week of The Royal Show this week, so we organised a little social with some friends of ours. Whilst listening to the sound of leather against willow we merrily discussed how dreadfully wrong RASE had got it again.

One of our friends who has connections (his wife plays horsey with a few of the Royals) couldn’t believe how desperately quiet it was at the new event The Royal Festival of the Horse. The grandstands were practically empty, which was hardly suprising when RASE were charging twenty pounds to sit in the covered grandstands after you had already paid twenty pounds for a one day entrance to the showground. I am sure there were many there who could easily afford such an extravagance but equally at The Royal Show there were many in this agricultural part of the world who came for a family day out.

Last year when it was announced that the Royal Show was to close and that there was going to be a horse show in its place there was disbelief all around. After all both events had run quite nicely together for some years. And if you can’t make a profit when forty thousand people a day are streaming through your gates along with over a thousand stall holders, your not going to make a profit from stream lining it into a horsey only event.

In 2008 RASE cancelled The Town and Country Festival because they wanted to transform it into another show. They left that August bank holiday completely empty, then wondered why they didn’t get the large turnout they needed the next year for the newly transformed Country Festival. Not surprisingly The Country Festival 2010 has been canceled.

One can only wonder what they will do next.

I’ll leave you with the independents view.

The Independent