Open Evening & BBQ

Every year we hold our Open Evening and BBQ on this weekend. I think I have spent most of this week checking the weather forecast and praying for a dry day. The kids who ride in the displays are chosen mainly from the kids that give their time freely all year helping on the yard and need to be at least a good level three. Saturday morning wasn’t very promising with a few showers but it wasn’t too bad so we decided to go ahead outdoors. We built the course for the show Jumping and then it rained. At lunchtime everybody taking part had a practice jump then came the process of bathing all the horses and plaiting those in the musical ride. All the riders taking part turned up by lunchtime and the yard looked chaos with so much soap, water and kids everywhere. At 3pm sparks were flying out of the electric meter in the tack room. Steve spent an hour trying to phone someone but no one wants to know SWALEC says its British gas’s problem, they think its some one else’s problem, fortunately they stopped as no one wanted to come out. (sorted out today, loose connection in the meter apparently) People started to arrive at 4pm and we started the first display at 5pm The first display was an accumulator with various jumps from 2ft6 to 4ft. Riders choose the jumps they want to jump to amass points the bigger the jump the higher the points. Seven riders took part. Freya and Michigan and Chloe and Fred jumped the 4ft planks but had them down and Amelia and Leo cleared them twice. Fred is a very fast pony and pipped Amelia by 1 point making Chloe and Fred the winners. The next display was the Musical ride this year they were dressed as knights and really looked fantastic. The ride went very well but in the canter cross over there were several near misses and gasps from the audience. I don’t know how Molly managed to miss Zoe or how she managed to stay on. I nearly messed up the music at the end but it worked out right so hopefully it won’t have been noticed too much. I never feel I can relax until the Musical ride is over but once it is I’m at the bar for the first drink. The Mini Grand National was such good fun and Alex was brill as the commentator. It didn’t go quite as well as the practice. Lizzie napped which lost Emily some ground and Zoe fell off Taski after the 1st lap but landed on her feet and jumped back on and continued. Sarah and Polo won with Zoe H on Smartie a close 2nd. Bethan (The Queen) presented the cup. I thought the polocrosse was terrific we hadn’t had a dress display so that was the first time I had seen them and they looked very professional (Need a bit more practice on the actual playing though guys only Leigh managed to catch the ball, although great tactics and the passing and picking up had really improved over the last two practices). We finished as always with the Gymkhana. I introduced the first team who came in and cantered around the arena, Jo had only gone twenty yards when she fell off cause she had forgotten to tighten up her girth. The last game is the best I think but for me it is always a nightmare trying to get it right I don’t fix it for anyone in particular to win but I try to get one from each team in at the end. I lost two of the Bumble bees straight away. Amelia is too clever cause she told me after that she knew I would want to keep Carys in (the only remaining Bumble Bee) so she was sticking with her which meant she had a good start every time. It was also Amelia who cut Carys up and put her out before the last three although she didn’t try to do that on purpose Pippa just got too close and pushed candy out which then meant I had the two boys and Amelia left. Kai went out next which left Amelia – The A Team and Leigh – Team Moose in, I tried to let them go together but Pippa was quicker on the turn than I expected and got a lead. Amelia won it. It was great that so many people turned out as the weather wasn’t so great and we raised approx £400 for the Joshua Foundation. The atmosphere was lovely I thought last year was one of the best but this year was even better. It is fantastic when everyone works so well together and everyone is so supportive of each other. It is a lot of extra work to organise this but to me its worth every minute to see their faces on the night. I am so proud of everybody that took part. We have had our ups and downs over the years with some kids and students but there is definitely a great bunch here at the minute.  We had a bit of a after party in the indoor school which then moved to the house and I got to bed after 3am. Thanks again to everyone who gave their help. The photos are on the Web site www.talygarnec.co.uk in the gallery.           Next Year Saturday 11th July!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 2:11 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.