News
Posted on 11th May 2016

Leg 1 of the Event Rider Masters - The start of a new era in top class eventing

EventingLive Press Release

The Directors of EventingLive Ltd, the founding company behind Event Rider Masters are delighted that after 18 months of planning and thousands of hours of pro-bono expert time, the inaugural leg of the Event Rider Masters will take place at the Dodson & Horrell Chatsworth International Horse Trials this coming weekend. The whole competition, where 40 of the world’s leading event riders will fight it out for a prize fund of £50,000, will be streamed live on www.eventridermasters.tv.

EventingLive is the brainchild of Di Brunsden, the popular owner of event horses including the extremely successful Leonidas, ridden by Sir Mark Todd, and placed 4th at this year’s Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials. Di had the vision of packaging 3* eventing media and commercial rights in a way that has never been done before. This is particularly to appeal to a global TV audience and attract significant sponsorship, to provide new levels of funding to be invested back into the mesmerising sport that is eventing.

The raison d’être of EventingLive is create a surplus after all competition costs, which will then be directed back into the sport to support the event venues, competitor costs and there will be a benevolent portion of this surplus. British Eventing is a central element of EventingLive and will be the administrators of the benevolent portion. BE also has two directors, David Holmes and Paul Hodgson, on the board of the not for profit EventingLive.

Two longstanding event horse owners, Terry Miller and Jeremy Skinner, both who rather usefully are City lawyers, have worked with Di. They respectively support the riders Dan Jocelyn and William Fox-Pitt (Jeremy, not least in owning Lionheart who represented Team GB at London 2012).

The rest of the team, in the form of Alice Fox-Pitt, Bruce Haskell and Tara Glen bring very necessary skills from the worlds of TV, marketing and finance; as well as being eventing riders and owners and no more passionate individuals about the future of the sport of eventing would you find.

EventingLive, supported by interest free loans provided by the Event Horse Owners Association, British Eventing and some 15 ‘Funders’ (all being event horse owners), created Event Rider Masters which has been backed and invested in by Lisa & Chris Stone, giving the series crucial support through these formative years.

The Directors of EventingLive encourage everyone to sign up for the free live streaming and enjoy this freshly presented 3* eventing series.