If you want to learn horse riding, it is best to register in time at a riding school, because there are fewer and fewer of them in Brabant. Many entrepreneurs stop because the costs are too high. Children who want to ride horses can no longer go everywhere, there are many waiting lists. Olympic dressage rider Imke Schellekens from Hooge Mierde sees the demise of the riding schools with sorrow. “This hurts my heart,” she says.
Theo Derksen has a riding school in the village of Zeeland. Three riding schools in his area were forced to close as of January 1, he told Radio 1. And he notices this in his customer base, because more and more riders are reporting to him for lessons. But he doesn’t have that much space, which is why he recently started a waiting list.
“We have now said that we will not let any new people come for the next two months,” says Derksen. “Then we’ll see how the planning is going and whether there is still room.” He finds it worrying because it is becoming increasingly difficult for children to learn to ride a horse.
“People will pay more for bread, but that is more difficult for a hobby.”
The main reason that riding school owners quit is often the high costs. Els Jeuken has a horse and pony riding school in De Mortel, De Stap. She sees around her that more and more colleagues are getting into trouble. “Personnel has become more expensive, just like food and insurance. Everything around us costs more money.”
But passing on those price increases to customers is less obvious, she says. “People will pay more for a loaf of bread, they understand that. But that is more difficult for a hobby.”
Olympic dressage rider Imke Schellekens-Bartels from Hooge Mierde also sees the demise of the riding schools with sorrow. “We used to be dependent on farmers in our sport who had a horse or pony at the back of their farm,” she says. “We had riding clubs and pony clubs, but they are also getting smaller. The youth are trained at riding schools, so we are extremely dependent on that in the sport.”
“Our industry will also become smaller, which can certainly have consequences.”
According to her, the good name of the Netherlands as an equestrian country is at stake. She wonders what the number of people practicing the sport will be like in fifteen years. “If the group of horse riders and riders becomes smaller, then our industry will also become smaller, I’m afraid. That could certainly have consequences,” says Schellekens-Bartels.
In any case, riding school owner Els Jeuken has no plans to stop. To keep the riding school running, she started doing other things. For example, the canteen of the riding school is a training workshop for young people who do not go to school or do not have a job. “We want them to get a diploma, get them to work or back to school,” she says. Together with these activities, she can continue to run the riding school well.