Dear Members, I am writing this on a beautiful morning with more than a hint of Spring round the corner! Hope you and your horses have weathered the winter and are looking forward to the lovely days to come! This is the first of our Newsletters as Houghton and Huntingdon Riding Club an exciting prospect for the future! The Committee Members have worked hard to establish and events and training programme for you all, after listening to what you, the members, asked for. There is a lot on!!! Please now support your Club and remember that to run the events we do need on the ground help. The prospect for the Club IS huge... we have fantastic facilities in Houghton Hall Equestrian Centre, we have an enthusiastic Committee made up from long established members who have come out of retirement, the previous Committee who worked so hard with limited numbers, enthusiastic juniors, Patsy Bates who instigated the Riding Club at Keysoe and last but by no means least YOURSELVES! Let's make this happen!! Thanks to everyone on the Committee for their hard work in getting our new club off the ground. Cheers...Anne Palmer
Date Event Venue Cost Type Contact Sat-04-Apr Jane Dawson Flatwork and Polework, 3pm Home Farm, Alconbury 12.50 Training Penny Hipwell Mon-06-Apr Intermediate SJ qualifier CDRC Milton College Closed Competition Katherine Short Fri-10-Apr Meet and Greet Social 7.30pm Houghton Hall 2.00 Social Rebecca Robinson Sun-12-Apr Pleasure Ride (Endurance GB Event) Sissons Farm 20.00 Training Susan Durman Sun-19-Apr Combined Training Wittering 18.00 Competition Katie Larman Sat-09-May Jane Dawson Flatwork and Polework, 3pm and 4pm Home Farm, Alconbury 12.50 Training Penny Hipwell Thu-14-May Clear Round Show Jumping Houghton Hall TBC Social Judith Marshall Fri-05-Jun Dressage Test Riding Date TBC Houghton Hall TBC Training Sarah Anderson Sat-13-Jun Jane Dawson Flatwork and Polework, 3pm and 4pm Home Farm, Alconbury 12.50 Training Penny Hipwell Sun-14-Jun Summer Dressage and DTM Qualifier Keysoe TBC Competition Sam Impey Sun-21-Jun Horse Trials Keysoe TBC Competition Katie Larman Sun-19-Jul SJ Qualifier CDRC Earith TBC Competition Katherine Short Sat-25-Jul Jane Dawson Flatwork and Polework, 3pm and 4pm Home Farm, Alconbury 12.50 Training Penny Hipwell Sat-22-Aug Water play with Louise Darrington Wittering Grange 20.00 Training Clare Day Sun-11-Oct H&HRC Hunter Trial Home Farm, Alconbury TBC Competition Katherine Short Dates to Be Confirmed April XC Training with Sarah Anderson Ketton XC course Training Sarah Anderson May XC Training Home Farm, Alconbury Training Katie Larman May Rider Balance TBC Training Sarah Anderson June / July Jump Cross Training with Sarah Anderson Wittering Grange Training Sarah Anderson Mon/Fri Regular training sessions Monday and Friday Morning Houghton Hall Training Patsy Bates
Meet and Greet Social Flatwork & Polework Water Play Flatwork and Polework with Jane Dawson They will be a mixture of flatwork and pole work (on floor) and suitable for all ages and abilities. A great opportunity to work with Jane- a highly experienced trainer and dressage judge. Please book in via the booking form which can be downloaded from the website. Email to Penny pennyhipwell@hotmail.com A fun evening where you can meet the committee members and Team Chefs and ask questions about being on a team. We will also have an opportunity for you to have a go at trailer skills with Sue from Toads School of Driving. This session is open to members and non-members so if you have friends who are thinking about joining do bring them along. No need to book but it would be great to have an idea of numbers so do email the club to let us know if you can attend. Huntingdondrc@gmail.com Water Play at the Wittering Grange Course with Louise Darrington. This session is guaranteed to be a lot of fun. The session will not involve jumping just a chance to have a play in and out of the water around the fantastic course at Wittering Grange. There will be 2 sessions running for 1.5 hours each. 11am to 12.30pm and 1pm to 2.30pm. Maximum of 6 riders per group. Please book in via Clare clare.day@oldmillhouse.org Rider Balance Dressage Test Riding Pleasure Ride Dressage Test riding. Choose a test from selection (choice of area competition tests), ride test, judge makes comments / suggestions and the rider rides the test again. The date for this is subject to confirmation and more detail will be sent out shortly. Rider Balance with our own Sarah Anderson. These rider balance sessions have proved very popular and have been hugely enjoyed by participants. A great way to learn some new exercises to help develop your seat in the saddle. All exercises are ridden but are suitable to all horses and abilities. This is being organised by the Cromwell Group of Endurance GB many of our Endurance Team are members of this group. See Sissons Farm website for details and downloads. This is a great way to get an introduction to Endurance and to meet some of the team. GIG dressage also available on the same day. The training booking form can be downloaded from the website http:///downloads/training.docx.
Hello, Myself, Phoebe Crawford and Sarah Anderson are looking to organise a social event for the juniors so that we all know each other and can hopefully start to get more junior teams out and about for Houghton and Huntingdon Riding Club. If anybody has any ideas as to what they may want to do, whether this be bowling, a pizza night or anything you think would be fun, please let myself, Phoebe or Sarah know and we can get something arranged. Looking forward to the new club and all the opportunities it will bring us to enable the junior teams to go from strength-to-strength. Look forward to seeing you all out and about competing and training soon! - Sarah Marshall, Juniors x I know that for many of you it won t seem long since we ran the last Logo Competition but with the club now being Houghton and Huntingdon we are on the hunt for another new logo. The club colours will be Red, White and Blue as per Houghton Hall EC colours but we are keen to keep a separate identity so do not want to just copy the HHEC logo. So get your thinking hats on and creativity flowing and see what you can come up with. The design must be easy to replicate in embroidery so don t over complicate it. The winning entry will receive a voucher towards membership or events. We have a tight timescale on this one so entries close on 9 th April and will be on display at the social on 10 th April. Please send entries to the club email address huntingdondrc@gmail.com
We are trying to keep the website up to date with events, results and news so do keep checking in http:/// If you have any news or achievements you would like to share with the club or any classified adverts you would like placed then do contact Judith on jagjam@btinternet.com Area 7 Combined Training qualifier is on 19th April at Wittering Grange. Two classes for both seniors and juniors:- Prelim dressage/75cm SJ or Novice dressage/85cm SJ Please let Katie know if you'd like to enter it would be great to get a team or two together. Entries and payment by 24th March so please email kt_larman_x@hotmail.co.uk with your horses passport name and your membership number and payment of 18 cheques payable to BHS Area 16.
I have now been through all of the Results of the Winter Qualifier at Keysoe with my OS hat on and sent them all off to HQ. We had some really good entries for the Club, and although it does not put us in prime spot for Qualifications in all cases, we had a brilliant day and showed all of Area 7 what Team Spirit is all about. Thank you! All of our Team Helpers turned up on time with a smile on their faces, and I had more volunteers after our time was up! Thank you to every one of you for that, it makes my day so very much easier when I can rely on our Club helpers. The updated results are available on the Area 7 Website now, so you can look at the final results at your leisure. Summer Competition The next big dressage competition is the Summer Qualifier which is again taking place at Keysoe. I will apply again this year to see if we volunteer to set up on Saturday 13th June (competition being 14th June) if that will cover all of our Volunteering Steward roles. However I will need some of you guys to help do that for the Club. If you could pencil some time in your diaries for helping to set up on 13th, probably in the afternoon for a couple of hours, we should be able to help blast through set up and we can all be free to enjoy the competition on Sunday. The competition is also for the Dressage to Music Qualifier, so get your music sheets out and get practising! Speak soon, and as soon as I have a schedule, I will let you know. We do at least know the tests which will be used (BRC Rule Book 2015 - Appendix 1). The tests will be: BRC D3 (2014) - available to download on the BRC Website Novice 24 2010 Novice 30 2006 Novice 34 2009 Elementary 45 2010 Medium 61 2002 BRC Prelim RT 2014 - available to download on the BRC Website BRC Novice RT 2014 - available to download on the BRC Website
And the eligibility for Points is: Prelim - 0 BD Points Nov - 124 BD Points Elem - 199 BD Points Med - 299 BD Points RT - 60 BD Points (BHSI and BHSII not eligible to ride) MUSIC CLASSES Novice DTM - Prelim BD Nov Freestyle to Music 2012 Elem DTM - BD Elem Freestyle to Music 2012 Medium DTM - BD Medium Freestyle to Music 2012 Pairs - BRC Pairs to Music 2014 Junior Prelim - BD Prelim Freestyle to Music 2012 Don t forget all the Championship DTM Classes will be in 20 x 60m, therefore (I would hope at least) all Qualifiers are running in 20 x 60m, but again, as soon as I know you will all know too. And on a final note, as many of you already know I will be standing down as Dressage Chef at the end of the Membership Year, so if any of you would like to volunteer to take this role on for the new Club, or if a couple of you would like to support each other, please do let me on someone on the Committee know. I have enjoyed my time in the past few years as Dressage Chef, but I am finding less and less time to do other things with my family now, and I have also got more involved with Triathlon and cycling so want to spend more time with family and my own sports. I am happy to talk to any of you about the role of Dressage Chef, please do have a think, it would be great for the Club to have a fresh approach and a fresh set of eyes looking after this team, and we have such a great team spirit! In the meantime, any questions please do let me know Samantha Impey Dressage Chef
Some of you may already be aware but our fantastic Dressage Chef, Sam Impey, is stepping down from the role this year and we are on the hunt for a replacement. It would be a great if we could get a volunteer before the Summer Qualifier as that would be a great opportunity to work alongside Sam and gain some of her invaluable knowledge. The role of Chef requires you to put together the teams and complete the entries for the dressage events that take place through the year. There is generally a Winter Qualifier and a Summer Qualifier and if we are lucky the Finals. So if you can read the rules book, manage a few emails and complete some paperwork then you can take on this role. Experience is not necessary Sam will be around to give you some pointers and we have some very experienced people on the committee who will be able to help out along the way. Sam is happy to talk to anyone who may like to consider the role contact Sam on dressagehdrc@live.co.uk or the committee on huntingdondrc@gmail.com Huge congratulations to Clare Day who has been accepted as a list 5 judge. Very well done Clare. Also big well done to Sarah Marshall (junior) who qualified for the intermediate dressage championships to be held at Bury Farm equestrian in May.
Committee Chairman Anne Palmer chairman@huntingdonrc.co.uk Vice Chairman Penny Hipwell chairman@huntingdonrc.co.uk Treasurer Sandra Aschetino treasurer@huntingdonrc.co.uk Membership Samantha Impey membership@huntingdonrc.co.uk Club Secretary Katherine Short secretary@huntingdonrc.co.uk Minutes Secretary Rebecca Robinson secretary@huntingdonrc.co.uk Training Co-ordinator Patsy Bates training@huntingdonrc.co.uk Communications & Web site Judith Marshall 07977 218108 huntingdondrc@gmail.com Area 7 Liaison David Clarke Committee Maria Crawford Sarah Anderson Katie Larman Kim Fountain Lynda Warth Clare Day Team Chefs D'Equipe Dressage Samantha Impey dressagehdrc@live.co.uk Showjumping Katherine Short kaz214@hotmail.co.uk Horse Trials / Eventing Katie Larman kt_larman_x@hotmail.co.uk Endurance Susan Durman 01487 208495 susan_durman@hotmail.com Juniors Sarah Anderson 07725 415227 sazzy2706@yahoo.co.uk