2011 July | Chris's Blog

Tweets from Talygarn

Riding and Road Safety Training and Exam at Talygarn Equestrian Centre June 5th to 8th - limited spaces available 16yrs and over 2012/02/21
Show Jumping Wed 22nd 5.45pm 2ft clear round then 2ft3 2ft6 2ft9 and 3ft. Double clears qualify for Cricklands.... http://t.co/Ap8epCZu 2012/02/20
Show jumping Tomorrow sunday 19th Feb, 1pm start with lead rein followed by 1ft6 1ft9 2ft 2ft3 2ft6 2ft9 3ft.... http://t.co/BjGWhdu1 2012/02/18
Well done to everyone who took part in the Team Show Jumping today. Talygarn had lots of places and one win which... http://t.co/GVjpzrt8 2012/02/15

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Archive for July, 2011

BHS Riding and Road Safety

Friday, July 29th, 2011

I’ve been home from holidays one week and I’m already feeling like I need another one. Friday and saturday were busy sorting out a list of phone calls and a mountain of post plus the lessons and setting up for the mini hunter trials for Sunday. We were lucky with the weather on sunday and the Hunter Trials turned out to be a good day. Our first summer holidays activity was the Non Stay Camp which started at 10am Monday morning with 8 kids, going home at 9pm and coming back at 9am till wednesday 4pm. By wednesday we were all fairly tired but we had a show jumping competition that evening and would you believe, it was the busiest night we’ve had for ages. We didn’t finish until 10.15pm. I do like the show jumping in the outdoor school in the good weather, its a bigger school than the indoor with a lot more room for horses. I think people like to jump outdoors but still like to be on a surface and with entry fees only £6 a class its prob one of the cheapest around these parts. Today has been the mock for the BHS Riding and Road Safety exam tomorrow. We have eight candidates taking the exam so today we took four horses to the test route on the housing estate opposite the Ivor Arms in Brynsadler. We have practiced the route with the horses a few times but today one decided to play up, I think she sensed the riders were a little more tense and that affected her behaviour. Because we want the candidates to have the best possible chance we decided not to use her so the 8 candidates will ride the three horses. The exam will consist of a multiple choice paper with 20 questions. This has to be passed before the candidate can progress to the simulated route which is laid out in the indoor school and contains obstacles (the quad) and traffic lights. If the candidate is successful on this part of the test they can then continue onto the road route. In RCT it is essential to be competent when riding on the road as there is no provision for horse riders in this area and no bridlepaths. Next week Jen and I are attending a vaulting course in Northampton.

Posted on Friday, July 29th, 2011 at 12:58 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Romania, Brasov

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

I am well impressed with KLM Airlines 23/4 hour flight Amsterdam to Romania and we had sandwichs, cake, tea and wine all free!!! We arrived in Bucharest at 4pm and got a local bus easily enough to the train station, just missed the train so had to wait an hour for the next one. Loved the train, old fashioned compartments with the windows down, no drinks and no toilet well no toilets you would want to use anyway, 3 hours later we arrived in Brasov found a guest house at 11pm not the best but at that time didnt really care. Manged to get a cab to Zarnesti the following morning for 100 lei (25 quid – no pound sign on this pc but then i guess they dont need one in romania) Taxi driver was not impressed with the road over the mountains he had to take and tried to charge us another 100 lei (he didn’t get it) Loved the libearty bear sanctuary at Zarnesti. It is not a zoo but a rescue home for bears that have been ill treated in captivity. Most of these bears have been cruelly raised by humans from a young age and do not realise that they are bears. One young bear had been found on the road as a baby and a romanian family had taken him in, they had fed him and treated him as a pet until he got older and then they couldn’t cope with him because he was smashing up their house. Now whenever humans visit the sanctuary he is at the fence to greet them. Many more of the stories are much sadder when the bears have been treated very badly. In the afternoon we visited Bran Castle which is well known in the Dracula films. Bram stoker based the story on Vlad the impaler and Bran Castle although the Castles real history is in royalty of Romania. I did not realise that Romania would be so hot, tried to order a shandy earlier, the waiter didn’t understand, I got a glass of beer and a jug of homemade lemonade. Maybe it will be cool enough to walk down to the medieval looking town of Brasov for some dinner later.

Posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2011 at 5:19 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Open Day 2011

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

Every year I think it can’t get better an then it does. This year was amazing. I can’t believe we were so lucky with the weather 300+ people turned up to watch young riders from Talygarn perform a variety of displays including barrel racing, vaulting bareback jumping, musical ride, gymkhana and the Pony Clubs performance of charlie and the Chocate Factory. The vaulting display stole the show as it was a new display we had not performed before. Having seen an tried it in France a few years ago I decided to give it a go. If u had seen the first practices you would have thought I was mad to consider this as a display. No one could get on never mind do anything else but as with all ideas they start to come together with more practices. Both Tracey and I were a bag of nerves on the day in case something went wrong the performance was first class to the music of dirty dancing with the lift of 7yr old Olivia Murray in time with the song. Credit to Jennifer rogers for the suggestion of the music it worked so well. Several people told me it brought a tear to their eyes it did to mine too. The Oompa Lumpas looked amazing spectacular costumes thanks to Lisa Vukashin. There was 2 slight hitches with the musical ride one was a near crash in the canter scissors which added to the atmosphere and the 2nd was a break down in the music right near the end but the riders weren’t fazed and carried on regardless. The Barrel Racing proved to be very exciting with much cheering for that and the Gymkhana. The Bareback jumping always looks good and little 7yr old Olivia Davies and 10yr old Bethan Davies were brilliant Thank you to everyone who gave their support and a huge thank you to the many parents who gave their time on and before the day, it is now such a big event we couldn’t do it without you and a big thank you to whoever ordered the sun (Steve says it was him) once again we were so lucky to have such a beautiful day. I am now on holiday for 10 days in Romania (will keep you updated) there are lots of pics on the Talygarn facebook page and I will put them on the website when I return.

Posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2011 at 4:59 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.