Monthly Archives: September 2015

Events, Jumping, Reports

Showjumping Summer 2015 Report

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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!

Events, Horse Trials, Reports

Horse Trials on June 21st 2015 at Llanymynech

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Well this year we had a great response to our team plea, for Area Horse Trial qualifiers
We had a team representing each class, so an 80,90 & 100

80 team, Ali Harper, Justine Roberts, Meg Davies & Sam Davies
Sadly 1 member fell foul to the vaccination rule, so had to go HC, so this made us a team of 3, however we all knuckled down & managed to come a credible team 5th out of 15 teams. Picking up individual places too of 2x 6 th & a 7th

90 Team. Laura Smith, Vicky Robson, Elspeth Carr & Rachel Wooley
Again we had a a great team & they finished 5 out of 14 teams, Vicky getting an individual 5th!

100 Team. Sally Poppe, Rachel Tudor Davies, Becky King, & Rebekah Jackson
Sadly we had an admin error on this team. I failed to write which class it was & area instead of questioning assumed it was a 90. I tried to change as I had declared them as a 100 team at the beginning of the competition, but it wasn’t to be. Again ladies, I am so sorry.
On this note Sally & Rebekah decided to withdraw as the ground was pretty solid & didn’t want to risk their super horses. Becky &Rachel both ran individually in the 100. Both girls had a great day with fab clear XC rounds. I hope it hasn’t put you off for next year!

So all in all we represented the club very well I think, with our club up in the Top 6 twice

Many many thanks to our wonderful helpers, Elspeth for providing the gazebo for the dressage judges to sit along with tables, tablecloths & chairs! Rachel for coming to help set it up along with the arenas, also Sue Jones, Julie Phillips.
On the day, we had a great picnic for the judges, everybody made some lovely food, Justine’s mum for lovely cakes, Heather Jones, Gina Williams for being our hostess’ delivering around the arenas
It’s quite a stressful day to organise on top of sorting food out for the judges, but by the end of the day, I think it all ran pretty smoothly!! Most people were smiling! I hope I haven’t missed anyone off, again I apologise if I have!

Horse Trials

Jean Gow Trophy 2015

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Jo Nunnerley receives the Jean Gow trophy
Jo was chosen for the award this year because she has triumphed over adversity to finish as the highest placed VVRC member at our ODE at Berriewood this year. Jo has come back to riding after breaking her back a few years ago, and despite having two young children, she has managed to produce a young horse to competition standard.
A well-deserved choice for the award this year

jo nunnerley jean gow trophy

ODE, Reports

Grassroots Reward

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ive years ago Vyrnwy Valley Riding club lost one of its original members, Jean Gow. Some months before her sad passing, Jean and her young horse, Vinnie, had a serious accident while out riding in Llanrhaedr when a section of road collapsed underneath them. Jean never got the chance to ride her horse again due to her illness. VVRC member Lynn Lewis and her daughter Lisa took on Vinnie and very gradually helped him through the trauma and restored his confidence. A new partnership was developed for Vinnie with a young rider, Georgia Dixon, and all of this effort was rewarded last weekend when Vinnie and Georgia won the 90cm Regional Final at Sapey with a dressage score of 24 and double clear with no time penalties. The reward for this is that they have qualified to compete at The Grassroots Championship at Badminton Horse Trials in May 2016. Georgia is now off to university in London and so much of the groundwork for Badminton will fall back into Lynn’s capable hands. I am sure you will all join me in wishing them the best possible luck for next May and maybe some of our members will be there to offer their support.

vinnie