Equifest 2011

This year I have been riding Barney, an Advanced endurance horse borrowed from Jane Greatorex. As well as the endurance competitions I have ridden him in a few Pony Club flatwork rallies and EGB events. Because he is 24 years old but still in very good working condition we decided to show him in veteran classes this year. I took him to the Three Shires show, and came 2nd in the veteran class with very good comments from the judge. This placing made me eligible for Equifest, a huge yearly show that seemed to be way out of my league.

We decided to go to Equifest, as much for the experience than anything as Barney is in no way a show horse and it was hugely unlikely we would place at such a massive event. My whole family spent ages preparing for the show, bathing Barney, polishing tack and buying new show kit for me as nothing we have is much good due to lack of use.

When we arrived at the show it was scarily big, roughly on the scale of Windsor show and it took us ages to find our stable. We put a very confused Barney into a stable in the middle of a row of expensive show ponies and went to set up our tent. That evening we went to spectate all the pros doing showjumping and showing, and feeling very out of place. I took Barney to practise our show before dinner but he spent more time looking at all the new scary things and wondering what he was supposed to be doing. He seemed to think it was an ER and was VERY hyperactive. The next day we got up early (6am, ugh) and went to groom and tack up Barney, and I went to get my show things on. We walked over to the rings which were full of immaculate show horses. It was the 15+ Horse and Pony ring so all the horses had age badges on, but Barney was the oldest by miles except one other 24 year old arab. I had entered Barney in the in hand arab, ridden arab and ridden competition horse classes. We only came 5th in the Competition Horse as being an arab Barney was unplaited and was therefore placed below the plaited horses. The ridden Arab class was not a huge success either, we came 7th as being an endurance horse, Barney is fairly hard to keep in an outline. He actually behaved very well and was working in an outline but compared to the show horses his nose was not tucked in enough and we got marked down for not being showy. Although he was very well behaved his natural paces are a lot faster than most of the horses there, and when we did a lap of honour he tried to race to the front, he seemed to think he was in an endurance ride and he wanted to win the race. The biggest success was the in-hand arab, because of his energy and good paces we managed to get Reserve Champion, which I’m hugely pleased with as the Champion was a stunning 24 yr old arab.

It just goes to show that any horse can turn its hoof to anything, and have fun even when you aren’t in your usual discipline

Team Spirit

This year I did the Team Spirit 160km relay race at Lindum for the first time. I’ve wanted to do this ride for a few years so this year me and my dad joined 2 other riders and made up a team. Our first rider set off and finished at 18km an hour which brought our team well up on time. Our second rider also rode fast but not enough to keep our lead. My dad as the third rider went out and got dragged round by his horse Tally stupidly fast and regained our lead and then vetted fast enough that by the time I set out we were 20 minutes in the lead. The 4th rider of our closest rival team was Amber Sole, a friend of mine who is an incredibly good and fast rider and was riding a horse a 1/4 of Barneys age. I started promisingly with Barney full of beans cantering along with his ears pricked but after half an hour or so he got bored without anyone to chase and slowed down considerably. I’d spent the first part of the ride trying to watch for Amber sneaking up behind me but it was when I’d got Barney into a shambling gait vaguely approaching a canter that she bounded up behind me going “Hi Becca!”. Her horse Zed is not called the ginger ninja for nothing, I never heard them coming. Zed and Amber went in front and we cantered along together for a while, there was no way Barney was going to let them out of sight as he is old and stubborn. We came into the crewpoint together and my parents had to do running sloshes for me, something they’d sworn never to do but which worked surprisingly well. Our crews told us we were going ridiculously fast and were miles ahead of the closest team so we agreed to slow right down and race in at the end. Me and Amber had a nice relaxed steady ride plodding along country lanes and chatting in the sunshine. Towards the end it got a little faster, the ride finishes across a racecourse so we agreed to have a racing finish across there. Amber went through the gate a few strides ahead of me but by the time I was round the corner she was already at the bottom in a cloud of dust, Zed being a LOT faster than Barney. Barney, like me seemed to realise we didnt really have a chance but we went off in a shambling gallop to show willing. Barney is very slow off the mark, he needs time to work up to full speed so we were halfway down before we really got any speed up. Although Barney has great distance coverage and lovely paces, I wished I’d been on Annie instead, she lives up to her nickname of pocket rocket and might have given Zed more of a run for his money. Both Barney and Zed vetted sound and the final placing was 2nd for my team, we lost by 15 seconds. in comparison, the 3rd place team was well over an hour behind, we saw them as we strolled back to the cafe for cake.

It was an amazingly fun and successful day for the Parsler’s first raceride, and being 2nd to Amber Sole and her team of pro people is not that much of a disappointment.

 

I hope to do this ride again, and to anyone who hasnt tried it, its well worth a shot even if you haven’t raced before

Tags: barney, distance riding, EGB, endurance, galloping, Lindum Spirit, market rasen, race ride, racehorse, team spirit

PC Regional Endurance Challenge – Wimpole Way , Cambs. 12th June.

The Wimpole Way ride takes place in and around the grounds of National Trust owned Wimpole Hall and farm.  It offers the chance to ride in areas not usually open to horses and is a very popular event, attracting nearly 300 riders.  This year it also played host to the first ever PC Regional Endurance Challenge.

The weather was unfortunately not pleasant as by 9.30am it was clear that the rain and wind had set in for the day.  As the ground had been very dry and hard before this resulted in tracks that became increasingly slippery as the day wore on.  There were also several major route changes at the last minute which left riders and crews redrawing their maps and trying to figure out new times and distances in the short time before starting.  This led to many riders (PC and non-PC alike) taking the wrong route in places and having to make up time in order to complete at the required speed.  On top of all this the conditions made preparing  the horse for the final vetting extremely difficult as crews had to walk a fine line between cooling the horse sufficiently and preventing them getting chilled or stiff.

Given these challenging conditions it was perhaps not surprising that only one branch successfully managed to get their team of riders to complete and successfully pass the final vet.  The Whaddon Chase team of Rebecca and Bryony Parsler, Kathryn Naysmith and Peter Alexander proved the worth of their experience by all completing at close to the optimum speed and at a level sufficiently high to be awarded Endurance GB gradings as well team first place.  We were also extremely pleased when Rebecca and Bryony were awarded the prize for Best Turned Out pair at the event (ie out of all 300 riders!).  Hannah Rendel of Beds South branch was awarded the Best Condition prize in the Pony Club section.

(Report from Pony Club newsletter)

Tags: EGB, endurance, pony club, wimpole hall

Interregional Training Day

This year I went to my second Interregional team training day.  It was great weather, all sunny and warm. I brought Barney, the horse I’ve borrowed off Jane Greatorex. We got divided into ability groups and had a timetable of different activities. My first activity was seeing the physio. barney did ok but was fairly stiff as he is quite old, did manage to surprise a couple of people with his age (24!) We were given some more stretches and exercises for Barney to improve his flexibility.

After we went into the arena for a ridden lesson. Last year I was told to sit back when I cantered to put less strain on the horses forehand and I’ve been working on that. Barney naturally has a very long rocking horse style canter and that coupled with my awesome FreeForm endurance saddle means it is very easy and comfy to sit to. This year I was told that my canter was very good, so thats an improvement
We then had a session where we discussed various factors that can improve your chances at endurance and training tips. After lunch we all went to the arena and did some endurance based gymkhana games. The first two were relay races, with a sponge as a baton, one straight lines and one bending. The third was pretty evil, you had to pick up a slosh bottle from a person halfway up, the stand next to a bucket and pour the water in. The horses didnt like the sound of the water splashing and most jumped around a bit. Barney wasnt too bad  but Boris, Val’s horse was amazing. Unfortunately our team lost on speed because Barney apparently thinks gymkhana games are beneath him and did everything at 1mph with his ears back and scowling despite me kicking him on.

 

All in all it was a fun and informative day, and nice to meet up with all the team people again

Tags: barney, EGB, endurance, interregionals, lesson

Pony Club endurance camp

Last weekend my parents organized a weekend camp for all the pony clubbers interested in endurance. We took over Liscombe Park equestrian centre for the weekend where we had access to both schools, a large field, grass arenas and the cafe. We had food provided which was delicious, just as well because we were VERY busy. On the first day we had an introductory talk, a lesson in equine sports massage, a talk on horse digestion, a slide show on the World equestrian games (very interesting, fun to see how you fly horses) and a lesson. I took barney as even though he was a bit battered (he jumped out of the field the Wednesday before and smashed himself up a bit) his owner Jane said it was best to let him work it off. The first lesson was in an outdoor arena that was filled with jumps, so it was a bit awkward to get around and poor old barney couldn’t quite cope with all the new ponies and things and kept walking backwards into people.

The second day we did goal setting and profiling, a treasure hunt and a mock up practice ER.

I rode round with my friends Beth and Gemma on their ponies Paddy and Kizzee. The first loop went well, the route was reasonably marked and we didn’t end up hurtling into trees or spooking at carnivorous leaves. My mum had decided it would be a fun idea to put the ride through the water splash that was on a side bridleway at Liscombe. The splash was 2 feet deep at the deepest point, and 4/5 metres across with a slope in and out. Previously Barney has been fine with water, so i was fairly confident nothing would go wrong. Paddy and Kizzee led the way through without any issue and barney stepped forwards for his go. he sniffed at the water as usual, with his long neck that meant the reins had to be quite loose, and then all of a sudden he decided the water was far too scary/full of crocodiles/too muddy and jumped the whole thing from a standing start. Unfortunately for me he jumped at a funny angle off the slope so while he went skipping off up the track to talk to paddy I went SPLOOSH in the 2 foot of muddy, clay-filled water.  Both Gemma and Beth found it hilarious when I came up looking like I’d just done the Total Wipe out sucker punch (and fallen in the mud). Beth managed to catch barney off of Paddy and led him back for me while I hobbled after with my swollen thumb that I’d wrenched when i fell.

Although it was very funny and barney came out lovely and clean because he never touched the mud, I looked like a swamp monster and had soft tissue damage to my right thumb so I spent the rest of the weekend dripping mud and trying to get changed and write up my paperwork with my left hand.

Tags: barney, cross country, disaster, endurance, pony club, total wipeout, water, Whaddon Chase

Kings Forest 64km on Barney

On Sunday we drove up to the Kings Forest which is my favourite ride. I was doing a ‘warm-up’ on Barney, who though is unfit as far as he goes, he was a lot fitter than me. My warm-up is usually closer to 20km. We did alright, the first loop barney was full of bounce and shied at everything just because he could, he did a lovely toe-flicking trot through most of the forest, with an occasional bouncing rocking horse canter. His owner Jane was riding with me on her youngster Rusty. At the beginning of the ride Jane noticed she had put Barneys saddlepads on the saddle she was using for Rusty (I used my Freeform on Barney) so we tried to sort it out by putting leg wrap pads under the saddle. It worked for a little while but at a crew point we stopped and swapped saddles. The Freeform fitted Rusty fine and the barney sized saddle obviously worked on him. We had a bit of trouble getting the stirrups long enough for Janes legs but after a while we set off again.  The first loop went fine, and we got back to the venue fairly quickly despite hold ups. Barney had a dehydration of 3 at the vet gate so we have him a bucket of sloppy feed which he chomped down and decorated his face, his bridle and my sister with. We set off for a different loop for the next 32km. There was a long straight track that headed straight through the forest and out the north side, where we trotted up a seemingly endless flinty track past a huge pig farm. On the way back down the same endless track (it was 2 way) Rusty got spooked by a balloon stuck in the pig fence and jumped sideways, tipping Jane off the side. he didn’t run away, he just stood there starting at Jane lying on the floor with a puzzled expression. Jane was fine and got back on shortly, and we went on again. Once we were back in the forest and headed home the horses perked up and it didnt seem so far back. Barney vetted in with a 48 heartrate but only just sound due to an arthritic hip, bumpy trot up and my inability to stagger fast enough. The vets were amazed how well he looked for 24 though

 

Super achy after the ride but it was fun and contrary to expectations I didnt die, theres an 80km in 2 weeks, that could be fun.

Tags: 64km, endurance, Kings Forest

Short training ride on Barney

I haven’t done much since the end of the season but today I went to Jane Greatorex’s place to take Barney out for a short ride, I might be keeping him with my ponies for the summer while Annie’s in foal. It went ok and Barney is just as nice as ever but there was a minor disaster that our responsible adult had a not so responsible horse that didn’t want to be ridden, so me and my sisters went off with a hand drawn map. It took maybe half a mile to make the first wrong turning, we ended up next to some people cleaning a pond, 3 noisy dogs and some people pheasant shooting. Barney apparently hates dogs and danced around and tried to run into hedges which was not fun We all survived and had a lovely walk around Cambridge in the sun (amazing, i know) and came back to have a pub lunch. Typically, the pub wasn’t serving food and beer doesn’t really count as lunch, so we went back to Jane’s house and made bacon butties.

Hopefully this spring we will put Annie in foal, we’ve been looking at stallions all winter. I’m reckoning on getting an Arab stallion, but we are trying to juggle to get one fairly small (Annie is 13hh) with a low heart rate and above all a nice temperament. So far the stallions we’ve looked at mostly give chestnut foals with socks and blazes so I could end up with two identical ponies. While Annie is in foal I won’t be able to compete on her so we are planning on swapping our old mare Kessie for Barney for the summer, so I can get some experience on a good old racehorse who knows what he is doing.

Whaddon Chase sweeps the board at Pony Club National Endurance Championships

Just a copy of the official press release

“The 2010 Championships  at College Equestrian Centre Bedford saw Pony Club Members representing 14 branches from all over the country, battling it out in the Novice, Intermediate and Open sections.  All riders will have had to qualify at a minimum of 3 events at regional level throughout the year and this ensures an extremely high standard at the finals.

With entries slightly up on last years event the atmosphere was fantastic and thankfully the threatened showers held off.  There were some tense moments at the end as teams waited for the last few ponies to be trotted up for the vet.  In the end the results were very close across all three classes.

The Whaddon Chase Branch of The Pony Club enjoyed stunning success with Members taking the top spots at all three levels! Team manager Jim Parsler describes himself as being “quite obnoxiously proud” of the 12 strong team and says that he is delighted by the consistent progress and enthusiasm shown by team members over the last 2 years.  The quite incredible results clearly reflect the effort and commitment shown by these young riders.” 

Tags: endurance, pony club, Whaddon Chase

HOME INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS

Finally!  The big event has happened. All the planning and fund raising has worked, and last Monday we set off for Burghie.
We took several days over the journey because it is a huge distance from here to Burghie, and we needed the horses to arrive there still able to compete.

The weekend before was spent packing for the journey and on Monday we finally went down to the paddock and picked up Tally and Annie, who were competing there. The first day we only did a 3 hour stretch, stopping in Derby shire where Clair Calvert, another endurance rider we have become friends with, lives. She lent us a field for the ponies next to her own, and when we put Tally and Annie there they were a bit confused at the large number of nearly identical dales ponies (we have a dales at home). There was a lovely little cottage near to the field which we rented as bed and breakfast for the night.

After a lovely breakfast of fresh eggs we loaded up the ponies again and set off for the longest leg of the journey, to Perth. This stretch was 9 and a half hours long and very tiring for all of us. Clair had suggested a very nice service station run by farmers where we stopped for lunch and we later off loaded the ponies at another services which had a large piece of grass. We got taken for a bit of a drag and got stared at a bit by other travelers, even though taking your horse for a walk at a services is a perfectly normal thing to do. We arrived in Perth at about 8pm that night, and put the ponies in stables and went to Jackie’s house where she put us up for the 2 nights we were staying. The next day we turned the ponies out and went off for a rest day in Perth. We explored Scone Palace, which I pretended was mine and took a picture for my friends, then went back to the house where Jackie and mum cooked dinner (yum).
The next day we made the last drive to Burghie. By now the poor ponies were a bit fed up of the trailer but still went in without any trouble. The route wasn’t too bad and we arrived in the afternoon, put the ponies in their nice indoor stables and started setting up. We spent a while covering everything in flags, we had a flag pole and a huge string of bunting and fairy lights all round our gazebo so there was no problem identifying the England team camp. After meeting and chatting with the rest of the team members, we all went off to have dinner and go to bed.

On Friday, our second day at Burghie, we all had a team meeting after checking and feeding the horses. We all got our team kit (rugs, shirts, coats, numnahs, hat silks etc). Maggie (chief d’equipe) told us that all the other teams are worried we might be hard to beat as they didn’t know which of us were team members and which were reserves. We had Lorna our physio looking at all the horses that morning and later on me and Dad went for a short ride round the cross country course and woods there. After the briefing held for all the teams we went off to a bistro for a team England dinner. We filled up almost the whole place and moved all the tables around. The food was lovely but the waitresses were run off their feet with the hundreds of different orders.

Saturday was a crewing day for the 1 day riders so me and my family put on our crewing shirts and baseball caps and drove out to the back of beyond where CP2 was to crew the riders. We managed to find the single level-ish bit in the whole of Scotland and parked on it and set up the buckets and slosh bottles. The day went well, everyone passed us fine with no issues except for me finding a hidden stream next to the path (brr). As we finished before the end of the day we ran off to find a tea-shop and spent a peaceful afternoon looking through museums and walking round the harbor and not being at the venue. In the evening we had a hog roast and an amazing huge cake baked by one of the Scots that I managed to get a huge piece of before they realize they were running out and made the slices 1/4 of the size. I chatted to the days riders to find out what the course was, and their descriptions just made my confidence sky-high -_- (rocks, rain, bogs and hills to fall down, impossible gates etc)

Sunday, the big day!

We got up early and dressed in all our team kit and riding clothes, then went to groom and plait the ponies before heading off to vet. After passing the vet we went back to the stables and tacked up the ponies and went to the start. The start of the ride was up tarmac lanes and stony tracks which is what the rest of the ride turned out to be as well. The first problem we came across were hoof-sized metal drainage trenches in the paths.  We had been told that a horse cut its hoof in one so we took a lot of care making sure our ponies didn’t do the same. Almost the whole route was roads or hard sand tracks except for the disused railway which was mostly grass with the odd boggy or stony patch. On the railway were two gates, one you had to stand next to a really steep drop to open it, which Tally nearly fell down because he was being stupid and the other which got stuck on a rock so we left it for the Scottish people who were following us .  At the end of the railway where we had to walk through a stream/bog there was a field of Haflinger ponies, so we took pictures for my friend Rhiannon who has a Haflinger. The weather stayed dry but cool for the whole ride until we reached the vet-gate. It was on top of a moor and after 2 min there we could see a huge rainstorm coming towards us. Me and dad as riders got to hide in the car and eat and drink for the vet hold time and poor mum and Bryony had to stay and hold the horses in the rain. After the vet-gate the weather dried up a bit but it was still cold. We got a bit lost after one of the points on route, as the marking had ended up hidden behind a tree and we wasted about 10 minutes trotting back and forth.

The rest of the ride was alright apart from Tally hitting one stone too many and hobbling the last 2 km. We finished at 10.41km/h which wasn’t bad given the optimum was 11km/h. Maggie said I should have gone on when Tally started hobbling but no way was Annie going to go on her own lol. When we came in everyone was waving flags and cheering which was awesome, and the whole team helped us crew. Annie passed the vet and got a Gold grading, which means there were no penalties at all, impressive given the amount of things you can get penalties for. Sadly tally came up unlevel in the trot up but Dad still got a green tartan rossette for the ride. We had to leave before the prize giving to get back to Perth that night, as Dad had to be in work on Wednesday. The trip home was tiring but we made it in the 2 days and both ponies got home safely and galloped off into the paddock swearing never to go in the trailer again .

It was an amazing experience and I am so proud of Annie for making it round a distance she has never done before and coming out with the top grade. The rest of the team did well too, we came 2nd overall, just behind the Scottish because one of our team riders vetted out.

It was a great  competition, but now I’ve done it, I’m not sure I’ll trek that far again

Tags: competition, distance riding, EGB, endurance, England, English, Home International, marking, midget, route

Official English Team list is announced by EGB

It’s official! The 2010 English Team has been announced.  Click on the link below to see the full team listing on Endurance GB website.

http://www.endurancegb.co.uk/html/item.asp?ItemId=2085

Tags: EGB, endurance, England, English