2008 November | Chris's Blog

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Archive for November, 2008

Pony Club Dengie Show Jumping

Monday, November 24th, 2008

As the BSJA was cancelled today we decided to give the Pony Club Dengie Show Jumping a go. So we took Leo and Destiny to Hand in Clevedon along with grooms Sarah and Carys and mini grooms Zoe and Molly. The show jumping was being held buy the Curre pony club and team jumping was being held as well. We arrived just in time for the Dengie class, Amelia jumped Destiny first and unfortunately had 2 fences down. Leo was behaving very well and jumped a nice clear. The problem with the dengie is that its open to horses and ponies and its difficult to compete against fast ponies in the jump off on a 16.2hh. Nothing in the jump off was over 15hh nevertheless Leo did very well and finished in fifth place. Amelia then rode Leo as an Individual in the 3′3 teams and finished 4th. On the whole it was a good day but I don’t know what was going on with the judging. Frequent mistakes were made when results of each competitor were given. Amelia was given 4f when she actually had 8f someone was given a clear when they missed a fence out, one person was called into the jump off when they didn’t go clear and several others were wrong. When Amelia was in the jump off for the 3′3 we were watching the clock displayed on the wall and on three occasions the time didn’t start till after the 2nd fence. One of those competitors was actually placed above Amelia and really they should have had another 6 seconds on their time. It didn’t make much difference to us but I think it might have made a difference to their team results. As I do some judging myself I know how easy it is to be distracted but I also know how irate people get when the results are wrong

Posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 12:53 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Pony Club Dengie Dressage

Monday, November 17th, 2008

I decided a while ago to run a Pony Club Dengie Dressage prelim round as none are being held in South Wales and it means pony club members have to travel to Gloucester for the nearest one. Its a fairly easy competition to run and I knew there wouldn’t be many entries so I applied to Pony Club to run a Novice and an Open and we decided on Saturday November 15th starting at 4.30pm. I sent out some schedules booked the Judge and ordered the judging sheets from Pony Club. A week before the event the qualifying cards and rossettes arrived from Pony Club and the Dressage judging sheets. I had a quick glance in the envelope and left them in the drawer. On the day we had ten in the Novice and six in the Open which was great a nice quiet couple of hours. At 4 o clock half a dozen kids and myself measured up the arena and at 4.30 the first one was in and ready to start. When the Judge Olwen rang me from the judges box to say they had the wrong Juding sheets, Pony Club had sent Dressage test 2007 instead of 2004. Major Panic! but I have held this competition last year so I was praying it was the same test and that somewhere in my disorganised filing system there would be at least one from last year I could photocopy. As luck would have it I found enough for everyone. Also a big thanks to my friend Jacqui for writing and Graham Hunt for opening and closing the door. I will try and organise another prelim round. It will probably be January 11th. Well done to everyone that took part especially Carys who was gutted to come fifth when the first 4 qualify – never mind Carys maybe next time.

Posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 5:22 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Lucky

Saturday, November 15th, 2008

I had a call a couple of weeks ago off some people who had a 12hh pony they wanted to find a home for. Apparently they had bought it as a four year old for their daughter and it was as good as gold, they showed me pictures of it in lessons on hacks etc, but after a period of time the daughter lost interest in riding as they often do (and probably part of the reason for that was the pony wasn’t that easy to ride being young) but didn’t want to sell the pony so they kept it in a field for three years. Now the daughter is too big for the pony and they made the decision to sell him. So they put an advert in the paper. Two people with young children came out to see him and he bucked them off. Funny that! anyway now they are stuck with a pony no one can ride so they asked me if I wanted him for the riding school. Sarah drew the short straw and the first week was most entertaining as he did his best to buck her off. He didn’t succeed (as far as I’m aware). Sarah has ridden him in a few lessons and jumped him round a 2ft course and he jumped all the fillers. Marianne rode him in the lead rein team show jumping and tonight he did a group lesson in the level 3 with Ffion. I think he will come to be a nice little pony. People need to realise that ponies need work, old ponies will probably be happy staying in the field for long periods only being ridden occasionally but thats rare with young ponies. So many times I hear of people buying young ponies for young and inexperienced kids. I won’t say that doesn’t work as there are the odd occassions but on the whole its a recipe for disaster. Over the years we have been offered many ponies that have been lovely when bought as 3/4 yr olds but have soon learn’t to develop bad habits to the point of being dangerous to ride.

Posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 2:20 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Sunnybank Show Jumping Nov 08

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

Having had quite a bit of trouble with Muppet lately who has been going through a napping stage and on a couple of occassions has gone straight out of rings and blindly into any other horses in his way we have been taking him to places where he can be jumped indoors at the moment. So when we arrives at sunnybank for the 3ft class on Sunday we were a little alarmed to see that the bottom end of the school had been fenced off with Poles and wings to make a waiting area out of the bad weather and it wasn’t only horses in there but adults and kids. Fence 4 was an upright on a related distance from a double with 2 strides to turn before the barrier which actually looked like a show jump and fence 6 was similar. I was really concerned that he would take that barrier out and several kids and horses out too. I asked the Judge if she would announce that people may want to leave just in case but the judge insisted they left the area for safety, it wasnt raining or particularly cold at this point but you should have heard the people moaning. Some people have right attitude problems, do they think we would make this up and don’t they consider that it is other peoples safety we are concerned about. As it happened although he was somewhat erractic he didn’t nap but then whose to say whether he might have if the horses had been there. On the whole I was pleased with him he was 5th and Amelia also rode Destiny who won the class. I think I will put Destiny up for sale soon, she has been an excellent horse for Amelia to jump up to 1metre 20 but Amelia wants to move on now, although she will be missed she is rarely out of the winnings she is such a quick horse and jumps from some amazing turns in jump offs.

Posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 1:00 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Halloween Party

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

What can I say it gets better every year, In fact its been a very busy week being half term and a great week for party’s too being my birthday. Jen and I were invited to a go out for Halloween in swansea on Friday night, Having paid £40 for the outfit I thought it was a good idea to wear it twice so off we went, being sensible I drove to swansea with every intention of driving back around 1am. After 1 drink in Wind street and the offer of a house to stay overnight all good intentions went out of the window we dumped the car behind Mcdonalds and spent the night in Oceana VIP. Just after 3am they chucked us out rather hurriedly shouting fire I thought they were joking but they really weren’t. I have never been to an Indian resturant at 4am in the morning but I can really recommend it the food was really nice. The Pony Club senior members organise the Halloween Party and have done a lot of fund raising in order to hire the equipment some of the Pony Club committee members decorated the school and laid out all the tables before changing into their costumes. I thought it was going to be very cold on Saturday night but it wasn’t too bad, over 250 people turned up so it was very busy for the first couple of hours. It does tend to go quieter after 8.30ish when the bulk of young children have gone. The gladiator jousting seemed very popular with kids and adults and the Rodeo Bull was also very popular. I didn’t have a go on that this year as I twisted my knee on it back in spain this year so I just did the gladiator jousting which I fell off straight away every time (Maybe Sheena’s wine didn’t help) and the Sumo wrestling which I nearly knocked myself out in. Loads of people were in Fancy Dress and there were some great costumes. Steve and Taz looked really scary in their costumes in the burger van. Photos are on the Website in the Gallery. A few friends stayed behind for a drink in the house I think I might have passed out at 2.30am. But I have to say all in all a good weekend.

Posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 5:48 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.