2009 March | Chris's Blog

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http://blogs.talygarnec.co.uk/2010/02/nestle-get-set-go-free-promotion/ I think they are having a laugh. 4 days ago
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Archive for March, 2009

Glamorgan Hunt Point to Point

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

The Glamorgan Hunt Point to Point was held in Ystradowen today. Point-to-Point racing is steeple chase racing for amateurs and is usually run by a local Hunt. The season runs from the end of November up until June and features over 200 fixtures, the majority being held at weekends across the UK. Most of our local ones in South Wales are between Feb and May. Races are generally run over 3 miles with a minimum of 18 fences to be jumped. The sport originated from hunting men who raced their hunters over natural countryside from “Point to Point” More on the History of Point to Points My father trained point to pointers and I spent most of my weekends at point to points during the season, as I got older I spent a large amount of my teenage years riding out and on the gallops, we didn’t have the luxury of proper gallops in those days and most of our galloping was done twice a week 4 times round the field and occasionally on the beach but the best place to gallop then was on the top of Cowbridge downs. I hunted most weeks in the winter as in those days you had to hunt 11 times to qualify to race. (Anthony Martin was the Master then) I think you may have too hunt now to qualify but I’m not sure on that one. Anyway Jen, Amelia and I went down to the course and got there just at the end of the second race. We met up with Sharon and Camelia and went to the paddock to have a look at the runners in the 3rd race. There were 10 runners and I picked out a horse but Camelia new of the horse and didn’t think it would be that good so at the last minute I changed my mind and put a couple of quid on Passenger Omar who won the race. Amelia and I celebrated and spent the winnings on wine and doughnuts. The horse I picked in the fourth race was one of the favourites and wasn’t worth betting on so I picked an outsider. I don’t know why because I never pick greys and proceeded to tell everyone they never win and it didn’t in fact it walked home. In the fifth race there were 8 runners I narrowed my choice down to two and put my £2 on the ‘wrong one’ it was 4th, the other one was 2nd and would you believe the winner was grey. In the sixth race I randomly picked a name without looking at the horses and put my money on it each way, which means it needed to come 1st 2nd or 3rd to pick up some winnings and it came 2nd which was amazing cause after the first lap it was 8th and quite a way off the leader. The going was rather soft but I’m pleased to say I didnt see any accidents. Its a nice course at Ystradowen and very good for viewing the racing. Gallery

Posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 at 1:26 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Talygarn or Thailand?!

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Talygarn or Thailand?! Well I would say its nice to be back but there’s nothing like waking up in a beach hut looking out over the sea in Thailand. The Tea is better here but the weather is definitely better there if not a bit too hot and the nice sunshine everyone told me was here last week seems to have gone so I’ve probably missed summer. The closest I got to riding was to ride an elephant and they are not much like horses there wasn’t much cadence and collection. I’ve always had a soft spot for tigers so getting to stroke one was the highlight of the holiday, although I would prefer to see them in their natural enviroment rather than being tamed for the public. Everything seems to have run smoothly whilst I’ve been away. Well done to students Jessica Rowe and Jenna Rees who both passed their BHS Stage 1 and Amelia who won the Discovery at Pencoed College on Destiny. The show Jumping competitions have been busy and the addition of the Shires Qualifiers is quite popular. There are a lot of exciting things coming up over the next few months. Amelia will be jumping in the Open Dengie SJ Final at Warwick. The quiz Team are practising for the National Quiz Championships at Warwick. Three Horse Care teams are competing at Brecon and there will be Team Show Jumping here and thats just April. Unfortunately it doesn’t look as though the French exchange will come off this year, there were several complications but maybe we can get together and iron them out for next year. Today Amelia and I rode in our fields for the first time this year, hopefully the weather will improve and we will be luckier than last year and manage to hold more mini hunter trials (all bar one was rained off in 2008) the first one this year fingers crossed will be sunday May 3rd. Anyway with everything thats coming up Talygarn is looking like the place to be but I’ll keep my BackPack ready

Posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 7:23 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

The Pony Club Conference Cheltenham Racecourse 09

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

It’s been quite a stressful this week with so much to organise before I go to Thailand on Saturday with Martha. Last night I suddenly had a thought that I hadn’t checked the expiry date on Martha’s passport and found that she only had 3 months left and Thailand requires a minimum of 6 months. Then I decided to go to bed as I had to be up early in the morning to drive to the Pony Club Conference at Cheltenham but I couldn’t sleep worrying about the passport so I was on the 24hr passport advice line at 1am. Needless to say although I got up at 7.30am Amelia and I didnt leave till 9am which would’ve been ok to get there for 11am. We joined the M5 at Junc 8 intending to leave at Junc 9 only to find there was an accident just after junc 9 and all three lanes were at a standstill. Unfortunately we arrived late at the conference and missed the start. New additions to Pony Club tests were being dicussed which I will have to look into further, there are some new achievement badges and I was very interested in the changes to the Riding and Road Safety test which will no longer require riders to actually go on the road. This hopefully will make it much easier for us to offer the training and the test as we could not do it previously because our main roads are too dangerous. There were some very interesting speeches from Major Richard Waygood Riding Master of the Household Cavalry, Mary King Olympic Eventer and Heather Fell Olympic Pentathlon. One of the things I found very interesting about Mary King was that her parents weren’t horsey and she never had a horse of her own as a child attending Pony Club on borrowed ponies. Mary left school to follow her dream and worked as a groom for Sheila Wilcox 3 day eventer. Eventually Mary’s parents helped her to invest in a very small yard and Mary did numerous other jobs such as butchers helper, gardener, chalet girl and housekeeper to make ends meet. Which just goes to show with determination and hard work you can strive to achieve your aims. We left as soon as the conference ended and when I arrived home Martha had got a passport application, new photos and I have an appointment at 11am at the passport office in Newport tomorrow.

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Posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 1:58 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Open Pony Club Dengie Show Jumping – Area 10

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

I knew it would be a late night when I put my entry in for Amelia to Jump Destiny in the Open Pony Club Dengie Show Jumping at the Forest of Dean, Gloucester as it takes about an hour and a half to get there. When I entered I was told approx 6pm. The lorry has gone in for servicing so we decided to take Destiny on the trailor, although Destiny wasn’t too keen on this idea and it took us a good half hour to get her on. We arrived at 5.25 to find they were on class 5 and we were classes 8 and 9. Fortunately there wasn’t too many in the classes and at the Forest of Dean they have a nice warm cafeteria area overlooking the arena but unfortunately they closed it at 6.30, we managed to get some food and a very weak cup of tea out of a machine that cost £1.30 and was disgusting before we had to leave and sit in the gallery. It is probably a couple of years since we’ve been there and I don’t know if they have done something to the surface but it was terrible. Every horse in class 6 slipped one even fell over. Amelia and I were concerned about the safety of jumping and Amelia decided not to do the warm up class but Destiny needed to go in the arena before the open because she can be quite spooky so we decided that Amelia would take her in the warm up class have a quick ride around the arena jump one fence and retire. Which is what she did. I was also concerned about the course the double which is required to be 1.10m was 61/2 strides and several of the bigger horses had got very close to the second part, in previous classes also there had been some very random jump off’s, I really dont like to see a second round jump off starting with a double. Any way we managed to get the double altered and the jump off wasn’t too bad but I was still very relieved that Amelia won the class with the only clear therefore did not have to do a jump off. This means that Amelia and Destiny qualify for the finals in Warwick on April 4th and we also have to be in Warwick for the finals of the Pony Club Quiz on the April 5th. Destiny decided she didn’t like the trailor any better going home either and it took us another 20mins to get her on, she travels on it absolutely fine though. So by the time we got back to the yard and fed all the other horses in was nearly midnight.

Posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 2:08 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.