Horse of the Year Show
The older members of the Pony Club planned a trip to Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) Sarah booked the tickets and I arranged the Mini Bus for them for Sunday. We left just after 7am and arrived after a breakfast stop on the M5 at 10am. There are always plenty of equestrian shops at HOYS so that was the first stop. Competitive Horse Riding in any discipline is expensive and I’m not talking about the horse, the upkeep, the lorry, entry fees and diesel here but fashion and show jumping definitely follows a fashion. No self respecting show jumper wants to be seen without the latest gear. So if you are planning a few riding lessons for your child with the aim of buying a horse and progressing down the showjumping road now is the time to change your mind!! Amelia would like to be kitted out with boots from Joshua Jones a bargain at a mere £500 a pair, then theres the £475 must have Joshua Jones Riding jacket and the £275 riding hat she had for christmas last year she doesn’t like now, apparently its too big and of course theres more fashionable ones on the market. Makes the £100 for a tidy pair of jodpurs seem quite cheap but then on your average 3 day show you would probably want 3 pairs. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I wouldn’t have wanted to spend much more than that on buying the horse. Although those days have definitely gone too. We watched the leading Pony Show Jumper of the year where most competitors ages were approximately between 11 and 16yrs and the majority were wearing these boots and jackets. Having watched Ellen Whittaker win the pussiance on TV Saturday night it was good to see her win the Speed class Sunday afternoon and also win the Leading Show Jumper of the Year on Sunday evening, Having amassed approx £17,000 in prize money in two days, I suppose she can afford several pairs of boots. I wasn’t too impressed with the displays this year, they were OK but not great The HOYS High school musical ride was sweet with 16 kids on ponies but not really that spectacular. Maybe thats because I’ve been teaching a musical ride to riding school kids for over 10 years now and its not that difficult. The Police jumping through fire is much better. The Devils Horsemen Stunt riders did a display to the music from Phantom of the Opera although I couldn’t quite work out what the display was meant to be. There were some very good and skillful movements demonstrated but at the end of the day they are stunt riders and thats what I would prefer to see, much more exciting than all that prancing about with a pole and a nylon sheet. The mounted games always goes down well, the games are a little bizarre these days. What happened to the traditional stuff like mugs, sacks and flags although that cow race was quite amusing. We left for home at around 6pm with our purchases, a £28 pair of spurs and a £10 thing for removing hair from numnahs which will probably either prove to be useless or we will lose it before next week.
Posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 1:08 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.
