Summer Shows

Summer Shows

I’ve organised all my outdoor arena course plans for the show jumping throughout the summer. I planned to have the first one outdoors today, the beginning of May. With all the awful weather we have had lately I thought this was unlikely but a dry day was forecasted with rain coming in late this evening, so I thought I would go for it outdoors. We set up the course this morning and moved the shop etc to the outdoor arena. It was a quiet start but picked up a bit in the later classes. The rain mostly held off with one brief shower just before the 2ft6 class.  I try to keep the use of the mike to a minimum and keep it turned down as we have one complaining neighbour (which is actually the same one that put in an objection because we want to move the outdoor school to behind the indoor school which you would’ve thought he would be happy about because then he wouldn’t be able to hear us. I think some people just enjoy complaining). To be fair none of the others ever complain and don’t have a problem but there is ‘always one’. I am pleased we managed to get the first one outdoors and I am hoping the rest will follow suit.  There are only 4 Mini Hunter Trials, 4 show Jumping, 5 wednesday show jumping, an open day, several practises and 2 or 3 camps before next sept. Not a lot to ask for in the dry weather stakes really, about 30 days in the whole year. Maybe we will be lucky as surely there can’t be much rain left. If it doesn’t dry up after this weekend there is a good chance the first mini hunter trial won’t be taking place as the ground will be too wet. Not many weeks ago we were praying for rain as the grass wasn’t growing. Now the rain has come in abundance but its too cold for the grass to grow. I beginning to see why farmers making hay are never happy. Anyway after a lovely evening tonight and I’m sure the horses enjoy jumping outdoors as well I am going to be optimistic and look forward to them all being outdoors this year especially as steve cooks sausage and chips and baked potatoes in the shop. Next Show Jumping Sunday May 13th 1pm

Pilates

I find as I’m getting older I am also getting stiffer so in an endeavour to knock ten years off my age I decided to join a Yoga group but wasn’t fussed on the lesson an gave up. Some one suggests that Pilates was a good method of keeping flexible and improving core strength and stability, good for riding and vaulting apparently. I don’t know much about Pilates but today I noticed there was a class at the local leisure centre at 6pm – ideal time for me so I decided to go. I asked where to go at reception and joined a group in the hall. The first thing that struck me was how many men were there, more men than women which I thought was odd I would’ve thought it would be the other way round. Anyway not knowing anyone or so I thought I lean’t against a wall waiting for the class to start. A young woman spoke to me and asked if I was Chris. This always sends a cold shiver of embarrassment down my spine because I don’t mean to be rude but if I haven’t seen you for three weeks and then I bump into you somewhere outside of where I normally see you, I won’t have a clue who you are. I think I have some chromosone missing in my brain – the one that recognises people. I am forever looking blankly at people.  Anyway it turns out it was an instructor from Pencoed college and to be fair I probably havent seen her for a long time. She asked if I was new to the class and I said yes at this point the class was about to start so she said come on lets go. I thought go where, running she said. So off I rang with her thinking to myself that this seemed a bit odd, after a lap of running I said to her. ‘I didn’t know you rang in Pilates’, she gave me a strange look and said this isn’t Pilates this is circuit training. I veered to the door grabbed my stuff and was out of there. What was really worrying was had I not known anyone I probably would’ve stayed thinking it was pilates although I doubt if I would’ve ever gone again. I actually enjoyed the pilates which I might add was nearly all women, then I went swimming, then I came home and drank half a bottle of red wine to get over the fact that I nearly did an hour of circuit training.

Team Show Jumping

The Team show jumping series ended on a very successful note last Wednesday. Which was a huge relief after being indated with problems this year. The series started well in October with approx 34 teams taking part. The December competition was cancelled due to the fields being too wet to park after a mamoth amount of rainfall (last year the December event was cancelled due to a mamoth amount of snow). We re scheduled for January only to have to cancel again – still raining, so we postphoned till March. We were blessed with some drier weather for the teams in February (probably british summer now) and that event ran quite smoothly. March was nearly a disaster as I didn’t feel well beforehand and the evening before I had a severe water infection and a raging temperature. I ended up in TEAMS (out of hours surgery at the hospital) at 10pm being told by a doctor that I must spend the next few days in bed resting. Clutching my ant biotics I left the clinic in a slighlty delirious state after promising the doctor that a friend was in the car to drive me home. I drove home and proceded to overdose on antibiotics and paracetomol in hope of getting through the next day. The competition went very well and the weather was glorious.  By April I was a pony down, 1 horse down and 2 horses out of work with not much options for alternatives. Dandy jumped the first lead rein class he had ever done, a bit on the fast and high side and Tarquin jumped the first 2ft6 course he had ever jumped and Cerys Green jumped Destiny in the 2ft6 having only ever ridden her once before and that was at the jumping the previous Sunday. Julie normally does all the printing with me but due to her shifts and the activities I had on for easter and because I didnt get all the teams in till sunday I didnt manage to get it done till Tuesday morning. It takes approx 4 hours to do with  interuptions so thats why I would like to have the entries in earlier please. Also I ordered the team prizes from my supplier two weeks before. My suppliers always deliver on a tuesday but I was told there would be no deliveries on the 8th because it was easter Tuesday but I wasn’t worried as they always deliver on a tuesday so I ordered them to arrive on tuesday 17th for the 18th, by 5pm I was starting to get a little worried and had visions of handing out just a rosette and a Jumping voucher but fortunately they did turn up. Also another problem was the school holidays. RCT and South Glam have different easter hols to Bridgend schools. We didn’t know this until it was too late to change it and several clubs had team members which would now be in school (Apparently they also have a different half term in Feb 2013). For that reason we started the day later at 10am instead of 9 in order for some team members to arrive after school. In true british weather style it rained cats and dogs for the final event making parking in the field impossible, fortunately we had a few less teams (29) with the schools situation and we managed to get everyone into the car park. As I said earlier the day went well. Llangeinor Pony Club won the series for the 1ft6 teams and the 1ft9, Handford Hippies won the 2ft and it was a very close competition they just beat Talygarn by 1 point. Glamorgan Pony Club Won the 2ft3 series having won every individual 2ft3 class throughout the series and Talygarn Tap Dancers won the 2ft6 series. All winning team members received a large championship rosette , a free show jumping entry voucher worth £8 and a leather padded Bridle. A big thank you to all the clubs who supported the event over the series and a huge Well Done to all the competitors who have taken part.

Pony Club

From February to Easter every year we have several Pony Club events. The first is the Area quiz in Feb which the highest branch and centre qualify for the finals in Warwick. Carys Morgan Angharad Davies Kate Owen and Jessica Kingdom qualified at the Area and came 2nd in the National finals on April the first. We have also had the Area Dengie dressage in Cardiff which Kate Angharad and Carys qualified for, Carys and Buffy were placed 3rd which is a tremendous acheivement as there is always a very high srtandard at the Dressage.  The Area Horse and Pony Care Competition was held in Cardiff on Monday. We entered 4 teams from Talygarn 2 senior teams and 2 juniors. The competition consists of practical and theory rounds which include feeding, bandaging, pasture manegement, recognising objects, first aid etc. Talygarn Juniors did very well with one team picking up a 5th place. Talygarn seniors came 5th and 1st beating all the other centres and branches by a clear 9 points . Carys Morgan, Sarah Blake and Millie Bushrod were in the winning team and they will now represent Talygarn at the National finals in Cheshire in August. It has become tradition over the years to all meet at Mcdonalds for a celebratory meal after a Pony Club Event and of recent years we have been stopping for breakfast too. As all these Pony Club events come at once the diet has definitly gone out of the window. The Championships in August have changed dates this year and I am not sure we will be able to go for the Centre Equitation which will be a shame but the Horse Care team will go anyway.

Top Steal

One of the downsides of having a business that is open to the public is that over the years lots of things have “disappeared” The vast majority of staff, students and customers wouldn’t dream of taking things but unfortunately we do get a few unscrupulous ones. One year at Heol y Cyw horse fair I saw 3 of our riding hats on a stall for sale and they hadn’t even removed the painted TEC off the back.

Its always small stuff that can be put in a bag or in the car that walks, so far we haven’t had any break ins or horses stolen only this attempt by Carys Morgan to pinch Jimbob