Herts Hunt Pony Club

OBH Chilterns Triathlon – 29^th April 2012 - report

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OBH (Hughenden) Open Dressage Show 13th April

Despite a foggy start to the day, the younger members of Herts Hunt shone and soon put any thoughts of Friday the 13th behind them!!

The first event of the day was the Prix Caprilli ridden by Amelia Fogden, Jasmine Gutsell and Sebastian Weston. All rode incredibly well and despite tough opposition Amelia finished in the rosettes with a fantastic 5th place, whilst jasmine and Sebastian both showed great composure in their first outing in this tricky discipline.

The next class was the Walk Trot dressage test with Grace Kearvell, Teddy Fogden, Chessie Fernandes and Sebastian Weston all competing. They all performed extremely well considering this was their first formal event for many of them, Chessie being the youngest competitor of the day! In a large field and age range our youngsters shone, with Teddy finishing 1st overall and highest placed boy in the led section and Sebastian also achieving 1st overall and highest place boy with a whopping 70.2% in the non led . We were able to enter two teams and the Herts Hunt Red team, who were Amelia and Sebastian(Prix Caprilli), and Teddy and Grace(Walk Trot) achieved a team 2nd place - Congratulations all round on a great team effort.

Special thanks goes to Debbie Fogden in her role as team manager, coach and caller extraordinaire!

Report by Paul Weston

June Event Planner now available - click below

June 2012 Event Planner

May Newsletter now out.

Click below.

May 2012 Newsletter

Prix Caprilli Test No 11 New Version 2012 - printable.

Click below for Word or PDF versions

Word version

PDF version

Treasure Hunt – Ashridge Estate – 06.04.2012

PC Instructor's training day at Waresley Park with Jonathon Chapman - Report by Becky Reeves

For reports click on Members News on left

HSBC XC training day with instructor Nick Gauntlett.

On Tuesday 10 April Elvis and I travelled to MKEC to take part in the HSBC XC training day with instructor Nick Gauntlett. In the morning we had a stimulated XC lesson over show jumps in a grass field. To start with Nick made us canter round in groups of three in our XC positions whilst the other three analysed them. Nick was being ‘followed’ for the day by pony club instructors who picked up that I was more balanced on one rein than the other and correctly identified that I have one weaker ankle than the other due to injury. We then started to jump. Nick had set up a twisty course with a corner and stile as well as an offset double to negotiate. He then told us to imagine our spread was the biggest steeple chase fence in the country, the stile was a hanging 5-bar gate, and the second part of the double was the water fence at Badminton where 50,000 people were willing us to fall in. This meant we had to think about our approaches to each fence differently as if they were jumps on the XC course.

Before lunch we had a XC course walk where Nick explained his three different types of XC jump; uprights, sloping fences, and combinations, and the way to approach each. This meant as we went round the course on foot we had to explain identify the type of jump and then explain the appropriate speed and canter to have as well as any difficulties that may be faced with the fence.

After lunch we headed down to the XC course, much to Elvis’ excitement, where we jumped the different fences that we had walked earlier and put into practise the appropriate skills he had taught us; hedges needed little ‘setting up’ as they were sloping fences, upright fences such as palisades need a more bouncy canter to make sure the horse was focused, but once they had locked on we were told to push the forwards. Mine and Elvis’ only small problem arose at the water where Nick described him as a cartoon character running off a cliff! This caused me nearly to take a swimming lesson as Elvis fell down the steps rather than stepping, however I managed to stay dry and repeated them with a better approach where Elvis improved his technique.

We had a very enjoyable day and learnt a lot (though Dad says he would prefer better weather next time!).

Zoe Thursz