About us

Applications are invited from those who wish to become a member of BEWA. To be considered applicants need to be proposed and seconded by current members of the association and maybe required to send in samples of their work. All applications are put to the committee at the annual AGM. An application form is available to download from the site.

The British Equestrian Writers’ Association was conceived over a rather
too-convivial dinner during the 1973 Rome horse show, when Brian Giles, the
late Ron Wills and I felt it might be a good idea to bring those of us who covered equestrian sport into some sort of cohesive body.

In those heady days just about every national newspaper had an equestrian correspondent, even the tabloids: Wills wrote for the Daily Mirror, Giles
for the Daily Mail while I was in my second decade with the Daily Telegraph.

When we returned home the idea was not greeted with universal approbation
- “I don’t want to join a trade union”, being the main objection. But our plan
was principally to try to improve working conditions, and within weeks such
a need was shown, when, at the Royal International Horse Show, then at
the Wembley Arena, the press were asked to work in a dim, windowless
room in the bowels of the building.

Our request for somewhere better was greeted by Colonel Mike Ansell, who ruled the show, and British jumping generally, saying that he would not discuss the matter with a mob, but would talk to a couple of us. So BEWA came into being.

Having established our main aim, which remains an ongoing one, the committee
then decided to award a trophy to the year’s outstanding rider and to present it at an annual lunch. Since then we have added trophies for Young Riders and Juniors, and one to go to someone we felt had been of great benefit to the sport behind the scenes.

I was elected the first chairman, and except for a few years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Michael Williams took over, remained in that position until 2008, when I retired from the Telegraph and felt it was time for young blood to run BEWA as well.

So Kit Houghton has been handed the mantle, with Kate Green succeeding Genevieve Murphy as vice chairman. Maintaining the highest standards at a time when interest among newspapers in equestrianism is in sharp decline will prove a severe test for the new regime, but their creation of this new website is evidence of their determination to meet this challenge.

Alan Smith
President, BEWA