Team Training
We’ve had various team training sessions all summer with different instructors and at different venues. It has been great to see lots of new faces to team training including shiny, new members! Unfortunately winter nights have crept up on us again and we’ll have to do the odd weekend now ? if anyone has any ideas for future training then please let me know!
Summer Area Qualifiers
Nine of our members represented Vyrnwy Valley Riding Club. It rained…all day…constantly! But it didn’t dampen our smiles and it was really nice to not only feel part of a team, but part of a club too. We all stayed to support each other jumping and all shared our club helper task.
Cassie Woods rode in the Jumping with Style class and Rupert very much looked the part!
We had two intermediate teams with three riders in each team so the pressure was on because we couldn’t drop a score! Team 1 was Vicky Robson, Vicki Luxmoore and Sally Poppe, and Team 2 was Rachel Lewis, Rach Tudor-Davies and Kat Morgan (me!) ? By time we jumped the ground was boggy in places and very slippy in others! Everyone tried their absolute hardest but I think a special mention should go to Rachel Lewis who jumped a fantastic TRIPLE CLEAR and came second individually! Rachel and her lovely horse, Amber, usually jump on arenas so this was a huge achievement! Another mention should go to Vicki Luxmoore who rode her novice but very genuine horse, Mouse, fantastically around a tricky course. I’m really excited to see what these two get up to in the future: Definitely a pair to watch out for!
At the end of the day Team 2 WON the competition on a score of 4! As I said before Rachel Lewis was second individually, and super-Dave and I came 4th individually ? Our win meant that we qualified for the NAF British Riding Club Championships in Lincoln!
Thank you to all the supporters who came to cheer us on and stayed all day despite the rain!
The Championships
Sally Poppe joined myself, Rach Tudor-Davies and Rachel Lewis in the team that represented VVRC at the Championships. Sally jumped brilliantly at the qualifiers and little Kurley has been on fab form this year!
We all made the loooong journey up to Lincoln after work on the Friday because the class started at 8.30am on Saturday! When Rach and I arrived at 10.45pm we found Rachel and Sally with a pint of wine in hand!
The courses in both rounds were very technical and tricky but the girls rode really well…I did not! Dave and I thought it would be more exciting to team chase around the show jumps and managed to rack up the most show jumping penalties we’ve ever had in the last 13 years! Is that an achievement?? The team wasn’t placed but we all had a great time and laughed a lot ? I think the biggest success was that it was Rachel Lewis’ first camping experience…and she survived!
Thank you Gaynor (Mum), James and Chris for being our support team for the weekend ?
Winter Qualifiers
Now it’s time to prepare for the winter qualifiers! I have 6 lovely ladies lined up to do the Intermediate Show Jumping Qualifiers: Rach Tudor-Davies, Cassie Woods, Vicky Robson, Vicki Luxmoore, Elspeth Carr and Becky King. They will be representing VVRC at Reeseheath on 11th October, so wish them luck!
I’m also scouting for the Novice Show Jumping Qualifiers at Southview on 8th November – if you’re interested then please let me know!