Fingers crossed that the weather is set fair for the pleasure ride in Charlton Park on Sunday 27th. The final preparations are being carried out, and the entries have now closed with a record number of people taking part. Thank you!
The list of times have been published on the website on the Charlton Park Pleasure Ride page.
https://northwiltssaddleclub.wordpress.com/charlton-park-pleasure-ride-2021
We look forward to seeing everyone having a fun safe time.
Feb – April 2021 Newsletter
Another year, yet still many of our lives are in “limbo” – thankfully slowly but surely we seem to be reaching the end of the tunnel and can once again get out and about with our horses,
Because of the ongoing Covid crisis, it was a slow start to the year, the Club once again focussed its attention on online / virtual dressage competitions, which were well supported, some new faces and some familiar ones but on their new steeds, very exciting 😊
The up-side to these competitions is that it gives you something to aim for, is helpful if you haven’t any transport, plus you can vary your plans as to when to film the test, in case it’s chucking it down!
We were lucky for both Feb & March to have our super judges on board, Casey Stickland and Jo Lees, who have both competed up to a high level, PSG and beyond and are respected trainers – thankfully with a sense of humour, much needed sometimes!
The competition results are posted up on the website, at the foot of the relevant event page, and we have also posted on our Gallery, videos of the winning test for each class.
Our last virtual dressage competition is for April and thereafter we shall return to Ravensbrook Farm for our dressage competitions; 22nd May, 24th June and 30th July, but shall probably revert back to virtual comps between Nov 2021 – March 2022.
Clinics:
Finally, after 3 postponements, we were able to run the flatwork clinic with Jo Lees, using Casey’s great facilities.
The riders kept very warm, having to work hard during their 45 min lesson. Jo had the pleasure of teaching 8 ladies over 4 hours, being fully booked. Due to Covid we were required to re-locate to the outdoor arena so, Jo, at the end of the session was a little cold & hoarse, having to project her voice to 2 riders in a 60m arena against a very strong cold wind, but I could still hear her giggling though !
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, some found their horses more challenging than others but overcame the problem, with Jo’s support and we were delighted to welcome three new club members, Ali, Leanne and Jess on the day.
Future dates: 16th May, 3rd July and 21st Aug
10th April, Katie Withers welcomed us back to Ravensbrook, to enjoy two polework sessions, including raised poles, followed by a SJ grid session.
This clinic was well supported, and photos and short video clip are both on our website and fb page. The next such clinic is on 29th May and currently there are plenty of spaces available, so come on, get booking.
Katie does also book out her Canter Track, next one is this coming Sat 17th April, book through our website. I am sure more such sessions will follow, along with XC clinics with Katie later in the Summer prior to our two Hunter Trials – the first with a twist !
XC Clinics with Rhian Jones at Rabson – After her very successful debut with our club last year, Rhian has kindly offered another two sessions this season, on 24th April and on 19th June – full details on our website/Fb page and we aim to share the riders experience with you by posting pics / videos on our social media page etc after the event.
Le Trec 8th May – wow!! Fully booked – but in case of drop- outs nearer the time, if you wish to take part, please contact us and we shall put your name down on a “wait list”.
Best news of the year so far – Charlton Park Charity Pleasure Ride is BACK 😊
It is running on 27th June, pre-entries only, already had entries from some very keen participants, thank you.
We shall have cakes/tea on offer, a roaming photographer and the option to ride short and long routes.
Full details, as always, on our website and facebook page.
BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP – VOLUNTEERS NEEDED TO HELP STEWARD THIS RIDE, consider it a day out – lunch will be provided, please email Claire at charltonride@yahoo.com – thank you.
NEW, NEW, NEW – SHOWING SHOW on 1st Aug. ( QUAL SWPA C’SHIPS)
13 classes to whet your appetite, in-hand and ridden. The show schedule is already up on our website and FB page – no more than 15 entries in each class, pre-entries only and we have already accepted our first two entries.
We shall have refreshments, tack shop and a photographer.
The judges on the day will be Mrs Kate Woodhams and Mrs Ruth Mullen.
Other dates for your diary:
15th Aug – Hunter Trial with a twist.
2nd Sept – Harmony Horse Demonstration with Fliss Bell
19th Sept – Hunter Trial.
Membership – you can join the club at any point during the year. The sub is £15 per person or £23 ( family) and it runs to 31st December 2021.
Thank you for your continued support
Rita West ( chair )
Q. What does it mean if you find a horseshoe?
A. Some poor horse is walking around in his socks.
For the eagle eyed amongst you, you may have noticed that I made a mistake with the day of the week that the AGM is on. It is definitely on the 27th January at 8pm – which is a WEDNESDAY as all of you know, and not Thursday as put in the previous post. Sorry for any confusion caused! We would still like to ‘see’ as many of you there as possible. Many thanks for putting up with my errors. Kathryn
This is just a reminder that it is our Zoom AGM on Thursday 28th January. An important fixture in our club calendar and it is your chance to have your say. It is a first for the club, but we are trying to work round these challenging times! Normally it is an effort to turn out on a cold winter’s night, when you have just got in, and are warm and dry. However, this year, for the first time ever, that is not an issue. You can sit in the comfort of your own home, with drink by your side, in your favourite comfortable chair and join in! There is no need to travel, you just need a lap top / computer / smart phone / ipad and 30 mins of your time to join in and have a chat with other like minded people. Click on the AGM page of the website and ‘enter’ your name. Then we will email you with a link and a password to join the meeting.
Want the perfect Christmas present without going out to the shops? We are able to offer vouchers for club membership (single & family)!
To buy a voucher, please go to our website, home page and Join – on form provide full details of recipient of voucher, ie new member, and in notes space give your name as Giver, with email address, so that voucher can be emailed to you for Xmas day. Online payments only please.
Happy Christmas!
Dear All.
What a year, probably one that we’d like to forget but most probably won’t, I am sure that our horses have “saved” us during the last few months from going “stir crazy”, God love ‘em !
Despite having to cancel a good deal of our planned fixtures, we nevertheless managed to run in total 20 opportunities to either compete or improve you and your horses’ skills, via flatwork and XC clinics, thanks to our trainers Jo Lees and Rhian Jones , to virtual & real dressage competitions to Hunter Trials, thanks to Katie Withers, for the use of her facilities.
The virtual dressage competitions certainly have been a learning curve for all concerned , judges Jo Lees and Casey Stickland to get to grips with judging via videos – play, pause, rewind, play again, springs to mind as well as for those taking on the task of filming the tests, not as easy as you might think, thoughts being, is landscape mode better than portrait, a definite yes, and did I actually track the horse during the whole test, not always ! 😊.
As we were not allowed to use BD tests, we had to go elsewhere, some of the Canadian ones proved to be rather challenging, as their tests seem to be one level up from BD, eg their prelim tests equivalent to our novice and so on, but the riders stepped up to the challenge well.
These were well supported and no doubt appreciated by those without transport and we do plan to run them during the months of Feb & March 2021.
The Club has tried in the past to set -up XC clinics, with little or no interest, but something good came out of 2020 first lockdown, and so It was a delight to be out on the XC course at Rabson Manor with trainer Rhian Jones, such a confidence boosting trainer, both sessions in Aug and Sept were well attended and we received great feedback from all riders, so the club hopes to do similar sessions next year too.
Our ever popular Hunter trial ran in September with a larger than expected turnout and we had glorious weather and the ground conditions were superb with some great new fences on the course. Whilst checking out the fences myself the night before, I did cross paths with some of the riders course-walking, who were a little worried about either their horses, the fences , their confidence but wow on the day itself they flew around – with some fence judges being unable to contain themselves (me) shouting YEEHA – GO Girl !!
What a pity the second HT had to be cancelled due to water-logged course in October, but we plan to move the dates forward slightly next year to Aug & Sept in the vain hope that we can beat the weather.
Membership Year runs from 1st Jan 2021 – 31st Dec 2021, the fees remain unchanged at £15 annual fee for an individual to £23 for a family membership, any queries address those to our membership secretary Kathryn Tudor; katytudornwsc@yahoo.co.uk
You might ask why bother to join us, well for one we are a happy welcoming group of people who try really hard to make sure that we run as many events as we can to cover all tastes but ultimately to make sure that YOU just enjoy your time with your horse and with your fellow club members and if that wasn’t enough, all entry fees for members are discounted, usually by a min of £2 or max £5 per event, so what’s not to like ?
Dates for your diary;
16th Jan – Flatwork clinic -with Jo Lees ( indoor arena ) – 3 places left.
27th Jan – AGM viz Zoom at 8pm. – open to all.
Feb 2021 – Polework clinic( Prix caprilli) & SJ grid – postponed from 14th Nov – tbc.
13th March – Flatwork clinic with Jo Lees ( indoor arena )
Online dressage comps in months of Feb & March – schedules to follow.
Charlton Park Pleasure Ride – June – tbc
We also hope to put on a “harmony with your horse” demo with Fliss Bell, sometime in Autumn of 2021 and also a Showing show during the summer and of course run “real” dressage competitions, ODE, and HTs – keep yourselves up to date with our fixtures list via our website and FB page.
I know it’s rather early but as the club is not running any events in December, I shall take this opportunity to wish all our club members and those who follow us via the website , a Happy Christmas and healthy 2021.
Rita ( chair)
Unfortunately tomorrow’s Hunter Trials event has had to be cancelled due to the bad weather this weekend.
With the current ground conditions and more rain expected we felt that it was safer to postpone the event at this point.
We have decided to postpone the event for 2 weeks and it will now run on Sunday 18th October.
Hopefully you are all keeping well as things are beginning to open up again.
Online Dressage Competitions
We have managed to hold two of these so far, and they are proving to be a big success.
The April competition had 11 competitors including one from Wales making it an international competition. This was kindly judged by Casey Stickland and Class 1 was won by Rhian Wilkins on Nally, and Class 2 was won by Sue Conway on Strado. British Dressage then stopped us using their tests, so we have had to look further afield for more challenges.
The May competition was even more successful with 21 tests and a very much more international field with competitors from France and Wales. Jo Lees kindly judged this competition. Class 1 was won by Rhian Wilkins on Suzy, Class 2a was won by Rita West on Benhill Tanqueray, and Class 2b was won by Sue Conway on Strado. Jo Lees very kindly donated a prize of a free lesson to each of the winners.
Congratulations to all those who have taken part.
These online dressage competitions are proving popular, and we will continue to run them even after normal competitions resume, so hopefully makes it more accessible to all.
If you score more than 70% in two consecutive competitions at a particular level, then we are asking that in the next competition you enter the next level up i.e. move from Intro to Prelim, or Prelim to Novice. Hope that this makes sense, as it then makes it a little fairer for those who are less established at that level.
If you wish to get a judges feedback, but don’t want to be a part of the competition, then you can always enter as normal but put that you wish to go HC in the notes. That way your score won’t be published, but you will receive judges feedback and score sheet eg. if you are using tack that would not normally be dressage legal eg. Pelham bit.
Other Events
Whilst there are still rules to comply with and social distancing to maintain, we are beginning to hold clinics and canter track sessions which can be safely run. Please refer to the events page of our website, or on our Facebook group page to keep up to date with what is happening. The rules regarding the events may seem a little onerous, but they are being made to try to keep everyone safe, so please do read them and take note.
Dates of future events for early summer are set out below:
Thu 18 June – Canter Track Evening
22-30 June – Video / Online Dressage
Sat 27 June – Canter Track Afternoon
Sun 5 July – Flatwork Clinic with Jo Lees
Sat 11 July – Pole & Gridwork Clinic with Alyce King
Thu 16 July – Canter Track Evening
20-28 July – Video / Online Dressage
Sun 23 August – Pole & Gridwork Clinic with Alyce King
We look forward to seeing you at our events in the near future.
Happy and safe riding.
NWSC Committee.
Jan – April 2020 Newsletter
Gosh, what a start to 2020, unprecedented, I do hope that all of you are keeping well and coping with the current regime, hopefully life will gradually return to a “ new “normal over the coming weeks.
Thankfully we, as horses riders and owners didn’t have to endure the snow / cold of last year, but crikey, didn’t it rain ? It started the day of our pleasure ride in September through to early March and then suddenly Spring sprung upon us.
Whatever you choose to do with your horses and ponies at this time, just embrace and enjoy those moments, we are so lucky!
Update of past events;
In January we ran a dressage to music clinic at Breach Lane indoor arena, which was well attended, sadly some riders came on foot as their steeds were incapacitated but we had a fun 2 hours trying out different types of music to fit the look of the horses as well as their paces.
February we held a Riding Test clinic at Ravensbrook Farm with Casey Stickland with Kim Lewis, as writer & scorer. The weather wasn’t exactly onside that day, again strong winds, but those that did attend enjoyed the experience and came away feeling that their riding and horse’s going had improved over the session, tests ridden varied between prelim and medium levels.
We do hope to run such sessions again, later in the year.
As you will see from our events page on our website, that was the last event the club has been able to provide for it’s member and others – we shall be making a decision about the June Charity Ride in Charlton Park in early May but for now we are holding our first video dressage competition, have 10 tests being ridden, ranging from intro -medium and our judge is Casey Stickland.
Entry is now closed, although we intend to run another in May, so please look out for details on our website / fb page.
Results will be posted up on these two platforms.
Thank you for your continued support
Rita West ( chair )
It’s way pasture bed time!
Images from today’s dressage are now on the website <here>.
They’ve been better….but the weather was awful !
North Wiltshire Saddle Club 