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technical supervision of the Debrecen University, Center of Agricultural Sciences. The
academy is engaged in dressage and show jumping, there is also a roofed riding ground
and there are 25 horses, which are Nonius breeds and Hungarian Sport Horses having a
medium education.” There is a mistake in the description: in the institutions there have
never been and there are no Nonius breeds. Otherwise, the descriptions corresponds to
the reality of that time. The Riding Academy is still operated with the technical
supervision of the University of Debrecen. The “only” 3-horseshoe qualification can be
attributed to the only medium education of the horses and to the relatively new horse
stock in that time.
The horseshoe qualifying system assists the orientation concerning the quality of
riding establishments. Nowadays the Debrecen Riding Academy belongs already to the
4-horseshoe category, which is distinguished ranking (the horseshoe qualifying system
is from 1 to 5). Nowadays, the horse stock does not have a medium, but a good
education. The institution has not got the 5-horseshoe qualification, because it does not
have its own accommodation. To obtain the 4-horseshoe qualification the institution has
to correspond to lots of requirements, e.g.: environmental aspects, prescriptions of
horse-keeping, professional skill of horses, aspects related to riding services,
professional and personal factors. Furthermore, the qualification indicates that there are
many horses in the institution and the Riding Academy renders several types of service.
The number, breed, age and education of horses are very important concerning the
popularity of an institution. The institution is nowadays suitable for keeping 48 horses.
In winter there are 42 to 48 and in summer 38 to 40 horses. The difference can be
attributed to the attractive force of the roofed rising ground (20 x 60 m), i.e. this
establishment offers advantageous conditions for riding (independent from the weather).
In terms of breeds, there are Gidrans, Hungarian and German Sport Horses, Shagya and
Ponies. Ten horses are owned by the University of Debrecen, while the others are in
private ownership. Nowadays, the youngest horse is 4, the oldest horse is 15 years old.
The placement of the establishment, horse stock, service types/prices and last but
not least attendants are determining aspects concerning the status of the riding
establishment. The Riding Academy is in the town, but at the same time it is in a green
belt, this is a double advantage. The riding establishment has only 4 regular staff: 2
grooms and 2 instructors. Besides the regularly employed instructors further 1 to 6
instructors work periodically in the institution. The main 3 services of the institution are
education (2200 -2800 HUF per occasion), rental keeping (40-50000 HUF per month)
and establishment use (1200-2200 HUF per horse per occasion). The number of riding
lessons is 20 to 30 lessons a week, which relates to both horses and instructors; this
means full house. There is no precise calculation concerning the number of visitors; a
daily average can be estimated as follows: 36 riders, 30 attending persons and 20
visitors. On the basis of this estimation, can be said, that the Riding Academy has about
4000 to 5000 visitors per year; 2000 of them arrive from Debrecen (and its
surroundings), a further 2000 of them from the other parts of Hungary and about 300
come from other countries.
Nowadays, a riding establishment has several possibilities to advertise its services.
For instance, the Riding Academy advertises its services in newspapers, on the Internet,
in radio and TV. Since there is full house, no marketing development is planned.
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