Chris's Blog - The Blog of Talygarn Equestrian Centre: Horse Riding in South Wales

Tweets from Talygarn

Mini Show Jumping Wed 8th feb 5.45pm Schedule A To be held indoors. Classes LR 1'6 1'9 2' 2'3 2'6 Entries £7 per... http://t.co/tY4nnghO 2012/02/01
Dressage Feb 5th cancelled Next Dressage Sunday March 4th 2012/01/28
25th Jan Wednesday evening show jumping 5.45pm starts with 2' clear round then 2'3 2'6 2'9 &3' qualifiers for... http://t.co/lKilSp6L 2012/01/25
Tuesday 14th Feb Taster lessons in Equestrian Vaulting, suitable for riders and non riders from 4 to 18yrs of... http://t.co/rUFqMIzx 2012/01/23

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August 23, 2011

Pony Club Championships 2011

Filed under: Home, Pony Club — Chris Rogers @ 11:51 am

Last week we spent 3 days at the Pony Club Championships in Derbys. After packing the lorry and loading up Lucky and Buffy we left around 6am and arrived at the showground at around 11am. After putting up the tents we put Buffy in her stable but Lucky had to stay on the lorry until his was available. Carys Sarah and Libby made their way over to the Horse and Pony Care section. The competition is a test in practical ability and knowledge which lasts about 2 hours. 20 teams took part and the girls were placed 6th. After sorting out the horses we had spag bol for tea and Libby had a lesson in washing up assisted by Chloe followed by a few games of cards. The girls slept in the tent and Steve, todd and I had the lorry. The following morning there was plenty of time to prepare Buffy as Carys was riding her in the Dressage to Music at 12 noon. Unfortunately Buffy was a bit wound up and didn’t go quite as well as Carys hoped but still did a nice test and Carys was placed 8th. The girls then plaited Lucky ready for the next day. Robyn’s parents brought Amelia up in the evening. Tuesday was an early start for the Centre Equitation Competition. Robyn was the first to ride Lucky then Chloe then rode the Dressage test on Lucky. Carys rode Buffy and then Sarah. After the Dressage Chloe was in 2nd place in Section B Carys in 3rd place in Section C and Sarah in 2nd place in Section D. Next came the jumping section Robyn scored the highest score for her section but unfortunately Chloe was eliminated. Buffy who is not the keenest jumping wasn’t too bad for Carys but by the time Sarah came to jump Buffy decided she wasn’t playing anymore and although Sarah got her round it wasn’t good round. The scores from the dressage and jumping were then added together for the overall score. There were 24 teams taking part and Talygarn were placed 5th in the Tack and Turn out and placed 5th in the competition. Carys received a 3rd as an individual in Section C, Sarah was 5th in Section D. Robyn was 2nd in Section A and was also Best Newcomer in Section A. Later we were told that there had been a mistake in the overall placings and the team had come 4th. After packing up the tents and the lorry we arrived home just before midnight. Photos from the Pony Club Champs 2011 can be found on the Gallery

August 7, 2011

RCT Supporting Local Business

Filed under: Home, Riding School — Chris Rogers @ 11:53 am

Did you come to our open day. Did you see the effort put in by these young people aged from 4yrs to 20yrs to perform the displays. Were you amazed by what they achieved in such a short practice time. Every year I think how can they get any better and every year they do. Approx 300 people turned up to watch this year and everyone that spoke to me was impressed. Do you know about our Pony Club team that went to the championships in Derby last year and beat the rest of the country to take first place. Did you know that one of our riders is representing Talygarn in the Dressage to Music Championships at Derby this year. We also have a team in the Centre Equitation and a team in the Senior Horse Care. Did you know that we have a lad that came to us with Aspergers syndrome from Tonyrefail and asked us if we would take him on as a student, he has passed numerous qualifications since being here and has been awarded Student of the Year by Yale College Wrexham. Did you know that we have a child with cerebral palsy that takes part in competitions and wants to be in the open day next year. Did you know we are the largest and most successful Pony Club Centre in Wales. Did you know that all our BHS & NVQ students had a 100% pass rate this year. If you have anything to do with Talygarn Equestrian Centre you probably do but if you are anything to do with Rhondda Cynon Taff Council you probably don’t. Because RCT do not support us in any way. They took down our road signs, they do not support us for any bridle paths, they refuse to allow us to expand and now we have a neighbour who complained about the noise on our open day – it is laughable those of you who were here will know the music wasn’t loud enough on the premises never mind down the road but instead of attending the event and seeing how much the community enjoy themselves they jumped at the opportunity to install noise recording equipment in his house. I would like to point out that Talygarn Equestrian Centre is a business it is not a charity and I do need to spend most of my time making money to feed these horses and keep the wolves from the door (the main one being RCT Rates – nearly £1000 a month, bet you didn’t know that) I do this by teaching this is my bread and butter. Open Days and Pony Club Championships are just not financially viable they are fun. I put 6 weeks of free practices in before the open day along with the hours of planning, costumes, stress etc. By the time the Open day arrives I feel physically exhausted and believe it or not the only reason I do it is because I get tremendous pleasure from watching it all unfold on the day and seeing how excited all the youngsters are seeing their enjoyment working as a team in the morning with all the preparation. We raise the money on the open day to take the Pony Club Teams to the Championships in Derby. Another NON financially viable 3 days spent on a showground away from my business having to pay extra staff whilst we are away. Many of the practices for the championships are given by my daughter again free of charge. Last week we took one of the members to another venue to make sure the pony would be ok jumping away from home that cost my husband time and money to do so, out of his own pocket. Don’t get me wrong we enjoy seeing these kids achieve these things and thats why we do it because not everything is about money. So RCT if you want to come along and ban our open day because one neighbour doesn’t like his sunday afternoon disturbed between 2pm and 6pm thats ok it will save me a lot of stress. But please tell the child with cerebal palsy and the lad with aspergers why they wont be in it next year. Please tell the Pony Club they wont be able to go to the Championships next year because we wont be able to raise the £500 it costs to take them. Please tell the child who is in the championship dressage to music that she wont be able to qualify next year because she won’t be able to practice the music. Oh and by the way my daughter and I are half way through a british vaulting qualification which will open the door to 100’s of young disabled people but then again that requires music so perhaps RCT won’t be giving them that opportunity after all. Like I said RCT have no idea what goes on here and have no intention of supporting us.

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Equestrian Vaulting

Filed under: Home, Riding School — Chris Rogers @ 12:05 am

Ever since Amelia and I went to France and watched their vaulting team I’ve wanted to have a go. I think we were traveling back from the quiz in Warwick when I discussed the idea of putting something together for the open day with Amelia and Carys. The first practise was dire but I was very impressed by how well it all came together on the day. This prompted me to e mail the British Equestrian Vaulting (BEV) organisation to see if I could get any help. A lady called Gill e mailed back and invited me to attend a course to learn more about vaulting in Northampton. Jen decided to come with me. Gill kindly organised accommodation for us and included us in working towards a BEV level 1 in coaching during the 3 day course. We drove up to Northampton last tuesday. The course started at 10.30am, first we received a lot of information from John Eccles about the BEV, The rules, the compulsories, the freestyle etc. We also spent a lot of time watching the English Vaulting Squad. Day two included more theory and practical – lungeing and some teaching and more observing the vaulters on the barrel and the horse. The horses are very big and the one I lunged was over 18hh. Lunging is much the same as I’m used to although the lunge whip is much longer and therefore heavier to hold and there were some variations in the lunging e.g when asking the horse to halt the lunge whip is brought over your head and down in front of the horse. Many of the vaulters do not ride but attend gymnastics and dance classes along side vaulting. Lucy Phillips gave us information on warming up vaulters and use of the barrel. Good Vaulters have to be very fit and very strong so vaulting classes spend a lot of time developing this fitness an strength with games and stretching, the moves are learnt and practiced on the barrel and more time is probably spent on the floor and the barrel than on the horse. In the morning on day three Julie Newell English squad coach spent some time with us teaching us tacking up for vaulting and lungeing. Julie is very knowledgeable and has an obvious passion for her horses, she gave us many tips on warming the horses up and use of the lunge whip. I spent a some time helping one of the others to lunge and trying to pass on some of the info Julie had given me. Tacking up was the same for putting on the bridle so that was easy but much to learn about the pads and lunge roller. The days were very long finishing after 6 and mostly starting at 9.30 By Thursday afternoon we had absorbed so much information that it was all getting in a muddle. Jen and I were in different groups for our assessments in tacking up for vaulting and lunging which we both passed. We all agreed that we didn’t have enough time in three days to understand all the compulsories, freestyle, teaching techniques and rules so we have decided to go back and finish off the assessment in a few weeks time. We thoroughly enjoyed the course though and learnt so much from it. Everybody was so helpful and keen to teach us as much as possible. Accommodation was arranged for us with Rachel one of the other people on the course. We spent a lovely two nights with Rachel and her family in their beautiful house near Peterborough. We still have a lot to learn and practice but we are keen to start up our own vaulting group so watch this space.

July 29, 2011

BHS Riding and Road Safety

Filed under: College, Home — Chris Rogers @ 12:58 am

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.

July 13, 2011

Romania, Brasov

Filed under: Home — Chris Rogers @ 5:19 pm

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.

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