Team Show Jumping

On Arriving home from the Horse Care Competition (see previous blog) about 7pm, All the team entries needed to be printed up for the team show jumping the following day. After an hours relax Freya and I and a bottle of wine sorted out the entries and course plans which took us till 11pm. It was a bit of a disappointing turn out entries wise for the competition with only Glamorgan PC, Millbrook and Talygarn taking part but we decided to go ahead as the kids were looking forward to it and it turned out to be a really good day. We were up at 7am in order to get things up and running, as yards had to be done, horses fed, course built etc as the first teams were due to start at 9am. The first class is a mini teams class, lead rein optional, Talygarn entered two teams, one team had done it before, Angharad kate Zoe H and Bethan and were mostly off the lead rein they came fifth and the other team who had never done it before were Emily Callum Darcey and Caitlyn they were all led and came 3rd. Millbrook were the overall winners of that class. The 2ft teams were won by Talygarn Hannah Carys Emily G and Zoe M and Talygarn also won the 2′3 teams with Leigh Freya Jess and Jo the 2′6 teams were won by the Glamorgan PC with Talygarn 2nd. There were no mishaps through out the day and although there were a couple of falls everyone was ok and for once everybody seemed happy and we had no complaints. The one thing I love about team jumping is the atmosphere and the fact that everyone is willing to help, Freya did most of the judging with some help off Amelia Jen and Hannah, Jess and Rob did the door for most of the day, Leigh did the entries and helped with some of the younger teams whilst Sarah and Jodie did the entries, Steve did the Food and I did all the photos (see the Gallery for photos on our Website ( www.talygarnec.co.uk) and the general organising etc. We finished around 5pm and the yards were done by 6pm so that mean’t an early finish other than the night hay to do. We have been known to finish at midnight in the past.

Friday turned out to be a very busy day with several things not going quite to plan and minor problems which take up so much time. I had 3 students play a polocrosse match against 3 of the older pony club kids which was quite funny the students can throw and catch the pony club kids couldn’t so they got hammered, more practise I think. Freya managed to bruise her knee and couldnt walk on it for a while, I rode my psycho horse in the afternoon after spending some time teaching Amelia how to lunge it with two lunge lines and I was very pleased with him he was actually reasonably well behaved. Just got back in time to teach the level 1’s. Lucy also had a nasty fall in the evening although is alright now. Spent some time with a customer who allowed his daughter to ride in a lesson even though he hadn’t paid to then tell me after the lesson he didn’t have any money, (Don’t try it I can be quite sarcastic when annoyed) by the time I locked up it was 10pm. Saturday wasn’t any better with a shortage of helpers it took all morning to get everything mucked out and I didn’t get the time to ride Muppet. Although I did manage to take Cleo out for half an hour as Amelia needed company for Leo.

Sunday was up at 6am to go to the British Open Show Jumping in the NEC in Birmingham I drove the landrover as Jen Amelia Martha Jess Freya Leigh Tasha and Hayley came too. It was a really good day with some nail biting show jumping events, and several really good display, I particularly like the Devils Horsemen who perform in many films and do all the stunt riding (don’t think we’ll be doing that as an Open evening Display) although the Arena Polo was very good and certainly worth looking into. Driving home was awful as it snowed really heavy between Birmingham and Ross and we got home at 10pm. Could do with a day off tomorrow as this last week has been non stop but students are back tuesday and I also have college visit, so registers to finish, Risk assessment to do and assignments to mark tomorrow and I must ride the nutter Muppet. PS for those of you who are wondering why i’m not in bed, the time on this pc is wrong

Posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 1:09 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.