News!
Freestyle to Music
Hailsham are running the 2009 Prelim Freestyle to Music in a 20x40 arena as well as 2004 Novice Freestlye to Music at the club Dressage Show on 13th March!'
World Horse Welfare – a first hand account by club member Caroline Storey
At last year’s AGM I reported on the fund raising I have been doing for World Horse Welfare. The money has gone directly into Romania and so far about sixteen farriers have been trained which should more or less cover the whole country. The local horse owners rely on their horses to earn them a living, and sadly its not unusual for them to have a go at shoeing themselves. You can imagine the suffering caused.
I raised over the target of £2,000, eventually getting about £2,500 and have decided to continue collecting for this charity in the long term. You will see the boxes in several local saddlers and from time to time I will send the proceeds up to the WHW Centre in Norwich. I would like to thank everyone who has donated.
There was a carrot dangled by the charity as a reward for all this fundraising; a six day riding trek across Romania in June. This was a fantastic experience, great fun. We were a group of six plus two guides from the riding centre. We travelled right up into the hills of Transylvania, riding hard and fast for about 6 hours each day and covering about 190 kms in all. We stayed in different places each night and met interesting hosts each time. The horses were great, the group was fun, the open countryside beautiful, the food and accommodation varied, basic but adequate. Sometimes we stayed with the locals, but were always well looked after. It really was an amazing time. I definitely recommend the charity for its good organisation on these treks, they really made sure everything was arranged well The flights and trekking centre were booked through a company called In the Saddle.
Caroline is in the middle of the picture
When I got back I wrote a detailed diary about the trek, which I can email to anyone sad enough to want to read it and also the address of WHW if you want to know more about the charity, its fund raising and organised treks run by them. The main aim at present is trying to stop the awful live transport of horses across mainland Europe on their journey to slaughter.
Caroline Storey
scaroline007@tiscali.co.uk
Performance Awards
Following excellent interest over the past two years the Club will
be running their Performance Awards again in 2010.
Details are given below and if you would like to discuss any specific
detail please ring Loretta on 01323 500800.
More
info here
Download
entry form here
Report on the Judi Piper Dadswell Show Jumping Clinics
By Maria Elliott & Murphy
I thought I would write a report on the Jumping Clinics that have been organised by Jackie Collins for the Club. I have for a long time wanted to attend one of Judi’s clinics but for the past couple of years have had “unsuitable horse” “been pregnant” “lame horse” and finally “young horse” in my list of reasons for not being able to attend.
At long last I felt that my “young horse” Murphy had progressed enough with his basic training to finally be able to attend one of the clinics. After owning a horse that had the dirtiest of stops at fences and having been battered and bruised on many occasions my confidence jumping had been well and truly in tatters! One of the reasons for buying Murphy was he made me smile for the first time when I tried him over a jump and since then we have been working on the flat, over poles and grids at home with my regular instructor and my confidence has been building and Murphy is proving to be a star (in my opinion!). It was time for him to go out for a party.
We arrived at Judi’s yard on a sunny September morning just as she was finishing the junior jumping session. There were four of us in my group, mainly with young or new horses and we were all at a similar level. Judi spoke to us all before starting the session to find out what we thought our issues might be and what we had recently been going with them.
I was not backwards in coming forwards in saying that I had confidence issues and was worried about jumping fillers. We started with some grid work where Judi noted on some riding position issues I have which were probably making me feel insecure and adding to my confidence problems. Some of the others had horses that tended to rush their fences and I was amazed at how quickly with Judi’s advice they started to settle and jump in a nice rhythm.
Next, two of us were asked to ride over two cross poles off of the grid, where fillers had been placed either side of the fence with enough of a gap for the horses to jump the fence without having to actually jump the filler. The fillers were gradually brought in to the fence and in no time at all we were jumping a fence with fillers – and I had the biggest smile on my face! The other two in the group were already confident in jumping fillers so they went on to do some slightly different exercises.
We then went on to ride related distance fences and ended the session by linking it up with jumping the fillers as well, so we were riding a small course. We all left the session having learnt a lot and with exercises we could practice at home. I left the session feeling at I could probably jump the moon if asked, with a big smile on my face!
This was my first session with Judi and I will definitely be going to the next one. She has a way of getting you to achieve your goals without you realising it and has given my confidence a real boost. If you have thought about doing a clinic but have been unsure as to what to expect, hopefully, you have had a bit of an insight and will pick up the phone to book in.
Currently we run a junior, novice and more advanced session once a month with Judi at Blackberry Farm in Ripe.
The next dates are: 30th Jan, 27th Feb and 3rd April
If you are interested please contact Jackie Collins on 01323 849073.
