Event Reports
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Our AGM, 30th November 2023
The club AGM was held this week and what a good evening we had. A big thank you to Matteo who gave a fascinating talk on Equine Dentistry. Penny Haynes sadly stepped down as Chair and Ali Brown as Treasurer and we send them big thanks for all that they have done for the club. Well done to Emma Forster who received the Volunteer of the year award and Miranda Kelly who received the Clubman of the year award (kindly modelled by Matteo!) We raised £113 in the raffle and made an excellent start to the 100 Club for 2024.
Look forward to seeing you all out and about next year and the dates for socials and ridden events will start popping up, so keep your eyes on this page and website. Merry Christmas!
Arena Eventing Qualifiers November 2023
On the freezing cold morning of the 24th November 2023, a selection of Invicta’s members met at Golden Cross Equestrian Centre, for the BRC Area 10 Arena Eventing Qualifiers. Competing in the 80cm Senior teams were Miranda Kelly, Lucy Faragher, Emma Payne and Sarah Rosser and in the 90cm and 100cm senior as an individual, Amy Miller. Apart from the odd pole and sticky stop, the everyone flew round! Finishing with a team 3rd for the Senior 80 team and an individual 5th for Amy in the Senior 100cm.
Thank you to everyone that rode or came to support and especially to Emma Forster for organising as well as being chief helper even though you were not riding.
Intro Team Dressage Championships - 29th - 30th September 2023
So after successfully qualifying for this event back on a balmy June day, we decided that it would a fun and great adventure to trundle up to the Bury Farm for the championships.
With times possibly starting from as early as 8am, a couple of us planned to go up the night before, allowing us the opportunity to not feel too exhausted and rushed. However as always with horses, the best laid plans never go to plan; unfortunately one of our prelim riders had to withdraw with a lame pony about ten days before, meaning we were down to a team of three no pressure!!!
Our other prelim rider who was all booked in to go up on the Friday, ended up with no transport, as her lorry decided to not start on the Thursday!!! So the first task was to find another method of getting up there. To the rescue came Bonita, who was riding an intro test at around 9.30am on the Saturday, but was going up early Saturday morning. So Friday night, Emma is loading Jambo onto one friends lorry to take him to Bonitas, from where we would be travelling from at 4.30am in the morning! The total amount of lorries that Jambo loaded onto that weekend was 4 different lorries
However while all this was going on, Caroline was up at Bury Farm, relaxing nicely with her lovely mare Poppy and enjoying the centre and all it has to offer. Finally at around 8am on Saturday morning we all managed to get together and help Bonita get ready for her test….. her test was lovely and the fabulous Monty behaved impeccably and got fantastic score putting him in as an individual 3rd position.
Poppy and Caroline then warmed up really nicely, with Poppy looking lovely and relaxed in such a busy warm up, whilst we all thought her test was lovely, the judge gave her a slightly lower score than what we all thought she deserved. However, Caroline was pleased with how Poppy went and her overall behaviour.
It was then Jambos turn to strut his stuff, he’d enjoyed a little snooze in the stable and came out nice and relaxed to the arena, however he woke up some what going into his first canter in the warm up arena….in his 17 years of life he’s obviously never seen another human leaning over a fence! Thankfully he did settle and went into the arena to do his test, which even though he was being somewhat nosey and rushing he behaved himself and got through it without leaving the arena!
Overall it was a great weekend with regards to experiences and getting together as a team and a bonus to walk away with an individual 3rd placing for Monty and Bonita.
Riding Club Horse Trials Championships
5th - 7th August 2022
Swalecliffe, Oxfordshire
In the glorious summer sun, in the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside, our horse trials team joined 135 riders to compete at the BRC NAF 5 star Horse Trial 90cm Championships.
The team, consisting of Kathy Lister on Tinnerath John, Zoe Jefferson on Loughnatousa Erin, Miranda Kelly on Perri and Emma Payne on Bedazzle, completed the event over two days. Dressage and Show jumping were completed on the first day and then the cross country phase on the second day. Unfortunately, the long format (in addition to cross country on the second day, two sections of roads and tracks plus a steeplechase section is also completed) was removed from the event due to the hard ground.
After 4 lovely dressage tests, the team had one of the cleanest sheets for the show jumping that had caused carnage from the start. The cross country was definitely the teams’ highlight with 4 fantastic clear rounds with just a few time faults between them, placing them 8th overall as a team. Individually, Miranda also came 4th in her section and Emma came 5th in her section.
Hunt Relay
3rd January 2022 at Hickstead, Surrey
To start the New Year with a bang, two members of Invicta, Emma Payne and Kathy Lister, joined forces with Lucy Faragher from Moat View Riding Club, to form a BRC Area 10 team, at the Crawley and Horsham Hunt Team Relay.
The relay consisted of two teams of three riders, racing each other, against the clock, over an obstacle course. All riders start in the central start box. The first rider for each team go at the start bell, jumping the first jump then make a hand brake turn to jump the second. They then halt at a table, drink from a cup (this time we pretended due to covid restrictions) and return the cup to the table before racing over the next two jumps. They finish by completing another hand brake turn to go over the final jump and pass the whip to the next rider in the start box. The last fence has an optional joker element, which if jumped cleanly gives the team a bonus -20 seconds. However, if the fence is knocked down, a 20 second penalty is added. The -20 seconds can only be added once, even if all the riders jump it cleanly. If anyone knocks it down, any previous clears of the jump is lost. Any other fences knocked down cost the team -5 seconds and if the cup falls off the table then the next rider cannot go until it has been replaced (or timer if it was the last rider who dropped it, cannot be stopped until it has been replaced).
There were 25 senior teams in the class and the competition was fierce. There were some superb rounds and some complete carnage rounds. Our team got round in a good time with only a few penalties and were just out of the top 8 teams. Well done ladies!
Even the greatest was once a beginner. Don’t be afraid to take that first step
— Muhammad Ali