Mid Somerset Riding Club

Dear Member, 

Nearly the end of March and we really have come through the winter without too much angst caused by the weather and indeed the grass barely stopped growing and the horses are now well into shedding their winter coats. So it is time to look ahead to the summer programme and hopefully some lovely warm days.

Winter training sessions have proved very popular and we have had two ‘new’ ventures which were both well supported – the dressage to music clinic with Gaynor Colbourn and the dressage test riding clinic with Lynne Baldwin. We are repeating both of these as the feedback was so positive. We have just run our second charity quiz night which once again was a huge success and a very enjoyable evening. Ed’s supper was delicious and there were many people planning to kidnap him to be their cook at home!!!

We are now looking for TEAM members for the summer qualifiers. We would remind you that Team Managers do not have the time to ring everyone on the membership list and the onus is on YOU to contact them and offer yourself for team selection. Their contact details are given at the end of this newsletter SO PLEASE GET IN TOUCH!! We have two new team managers to fill the shoes left by Mandie Bown stepping down after a fantastic tenure of the HT/CT teams. She has now been replaced by:

Martin Boreham – HORSE TRIALS / EVENTER’S CHALLENGE

Lisa Sharpe – COMBINED TRAINING

Sara Bartlett – SHOW JUMPING

Carol Plested – (07973 360 968) DRESSAGE AND RIDING TEST

Please don’t think that YOU are not good enough for a team – talk to the manager!

So to the Summer Programme ~ we have training with Gill Longhurst at World Horse Welfare, Amanda Edmonds at Kingfisher, Jumping and pole work clinics at SBEC at Sparkford Hall with Ed Hobbs. There are three day clinics planned with Sue Petty at Kingfisher, a whole day with Gill and Ed at WHW, test riding with Lynne Baldwin at Half Moon Stud, Cross Country introduction with Ed Hobbs, and one day clinic with Steve Hague which will be popular. Please book early for all training sessions.

On the competition front we have two jumping competitions at King’s Sedgemoor on June 18th and August 27th. For these days we need two organisers – you will need 4 – 5 helpers plus yourself. Please contact Margaret if you could run one of these dates.

There are four dressage days booked at Kingfisher – and two at KSEC. Alex is now very kindly taking the EQUO entries but needs organisers for the day of the competitions. Again if you are happy to help on one of these days please contact Alex.

We will also desperately need help for the Annual Show at Wincanton Racecourse on June 11th and the Combined Training at Wincanton Racecourse on September 17th. Please contact Margaret or Marian. A half day would be wonderful – these events do take a lot of effort and planning and YOUR help would make all the difference.

We hope to have another Supper Night at the Northover in the autumn – so watch this space!! This is still in the planning stage!

We hope you find something to interest you in the Summer Programme ~ we look forward to seeing you out and about soon. Please help us by getting your entries in early for both training and competitions. It would be very useful if when entering training clinics by cheque that you write the date of the relevant clinic on the reverse of the cheque. See if you can spare time to help at one competition! Just a few hours will be appreciated.   Safe Riding!

Your Committee

Any from Social events, Competitions, Clinics, Team Events and Training.

email me on msridingclub@gmail.com and I will gladly enter them in to our Gallery!

Dear Member,

Happy New Year to you all!

Please now if you read this no further – please read the following three bullet points!!!

• THE LYNNE BALDWIN TEST RIDING CLINIC ON FEBRUARY 19^th WILL NOW TAKE PLACE AT HALF MOON STUD, MOTCOMBE AND NOT WORLD HORSE WELFARE.
• THE SUE PETTY CLINIC ON MARCH 5TH WILL NOW TAKE PLACE AT KINGFISHER AND NOT WORLD HORSE WELFARE
• THE JANE HOLDERNESS-RODDAM CLINIC IS BOOKING VERY SLOWLY AND WE WILL HAVE TO MAKE THE DECISION TO RUN OR CANCEL VERY SOON. JANE IS SUCH A BUSY PERSON AND WE ARE VERY LUCKY TO USE HER SO WE NEED TO GIVE HER FAIR WARNING OF CANCELLATION. THIS CLINIC IS ON JANUARY 28TH AT WORLD HORSE WELFARE. THE SESSIONS CATER FOR ALL ABILITIES – YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A TOP FLIGHT EVENTER!!!

So -to the round up our recent events~ I am sure those of you who came to the Mike Tucker evening will agree that it was a night to remember. Mike’s insight into the Olympics and Rio in particular was fascinating and once again the food at the Northover was excellent. Huge congratulations to Margaret for all her hard work in arranging this event. With the amazing raffle and the fact that Mike not only donated his fee – he would not even take his travel expenses, we were able to send £1000 to his chosen charity, the Great Western Air Ambulance.

Training sessions have been going well with Amanda Edmonds being as popular as ever, Gill Longhurst is teaching packed clinics at World Horse Welfare and extra time is being booked for Ed Hobbs and his pole dancers!!! In the New Year we have Sue Petty, Jane Holderness- Roddam, test riding with Lynne Baldwin and another dressage to music clinic with Gaynor Colbourn. Please, please book early for these clinics. All of these trainers will teach ALL abilities so don’t think ‘ I am not good enough to do that’ because you are!! The people who came to Gaynor in November were thrilled with their sessions and the price is amazing for what you get – tailor made music, a floor plan on the day and then a video and a practise disk before your bespoke CD is sent to you. Start saving now and book in – there are only 6 places available.

2016 was again not the best of years for our teams – but we did have a stunning individual performance in the Dressage to Music Championships at Bury Farm, with Debra Fews winning the National Novice title on her homebred Mistress Zadorabelle by a significant margin from her nearest rivals. Well done Debra! The Horse Trials teams once again kept the flag flying with Lisa Sharpe and Sophie Hodges going to the Championships. The inaugural South Wales and West if England Championships took place at Hartpury and are planned again this year. Please remember that being a Team Manager is really hard and very often thankless work, these managers do not have time to ring everyone on the members list – so the onus is on YOU to contact them and make yourself available!!! We usually run at least one Area only team which will give you the taste of team participation without the stress of thinking you may face a National Championship before you really feel ready and now you could go to the regional championship at Hartpury. So please pick up the phone and talk to the relevant team manager for whichever discipline suits you and have a chat to them – we need to get MSRC back at the top! Our SJ team manager is Sara Bartlett (07967 208 778) – she would love to hear from any of you jumpers – there is a new intermediate winter competition this year too.

For the Dressage – Carol Plested is the team manager, we know we have talent in this discipline so please contact Carol on (07973 360 968) Mandie Bown has stepped down from her role as Horse Trials manager after a very successful tenure in the post – she has now been replaced by Martin Boreham (07813 132 949) and for the Combined Training our new manager is Lisa Sharpe (07725 657 363). Please contact these people and let them know your availability. Carol as many of you will know is on box rest herself at the moment but you can still pick up the phone and tell her you will be available when the dressage competitions come along!

We ran the Novice Winter Dressage qualifier for 2017 at KSEC last November and Mid Somerset teams came a really creditable 4th and 6th – no mean feat out of 26 teams!!

We have dipped our toes in the EQUO water this winter – huge thanks to Alex Green – which is great news- and this has really taken off with most of the entries now coming via Equo. We are always still looking for more and for helpers and organisers – so please if you can spare a couple of hours – please, please get in touch with us.

As yet all the Summer dates are not confirmed those we have are on a separate sheet –   – the Annual Show is booked for June 11th at Wincanton Racecourse and there will also be Combined Training & Dressage there on September 17th. Sadly no Badminton qualifiers this year as Badminton could not secure a sponsor but hope to be back in 2018.

Our Quiz was so popular last year that we will run it again on Friday March 24th at Long Sutton Village Hall – with another fabulous supper prepared by Ed Hobbs! So get your teams together in good time.

We hope to see lots of you out competing in the New Year. Just a reminder – please, please enter early and please, please if you change your e-mail address or mobile phone number don’t forget to let Julia and Alex know!!!! Between them Alex and Julia are still having all kinds of nightmares with your contact details! If you receive your programmes electronically, please download them or pay the extra £5 and have hard copy by post. Our website is now in the competent hands of Jade Forbes and she will post photos on there for you.

Wishing you all sound and healthy horses and a Very Happy New Year and best wishes for speedy recoveries to Carol, Sophie Hodges and any more of you who have been ill or injured recently.

Your Committee

Congratulations to Debra Fews on her homebred mare Miss Zadorabelle

who have just WON the National title at Bury Farm in the Verdo Dressage to Music in the Novice with points category.

they have done Mid Somerset RC proud!

Well – it seems it must be nearly time to get the clippers out again! Quite a few of our horses seem to have ‘blackberry time’ coats now and are getting really sticky once they have worked! Hopefully some of these lovely autumn days will make the winter seem a bit shorter.  2016 has been another quiet year for our teams at National Championships. In Dressage we have seen a lot of new combinations representing us which is great news but they concentrated on Area only entries. One team qualified for the inaugural South West & Wales Regional Championship which was held at Hartpury in August. That was an excellent competition and we hear it will run at Hartpury again next August. Mid Somerset ended in 14th place and had two team members placed 10th individually. Oneof our team sadly got stuck behind a big accident on the M5 and had no option but to abandon her journey. In Horse Trials two individuals Sophie Hodges and Lisa Sharpe went to the Championships at Swalecliffe for us. We also had a lovely day at the Dressage in Badminton Park – these are not official BRC teams but it is a lovely day out and one team finished 4th and we had individual arena placings in the Championship ride – off. Well done to everyone who has represented us. Our Team Managers work so hard to get teams together and once again we would stress that the onus is on YOU to contact the relevant Team Manager and tell them that you would like to be considered for a team. If you put yourself forward for a qualifying team, please be aware of when and where the Championship is due to take place and if your team qualify you will be expected to go to the Championship. Our Team Managers are: Carol Plested – dressage on 07973 360 968, and Sara Bartlett – show jumping on 07967 208 778. Mandie Bown has stepped down after a very successful tenure as Horse Trials and CT manager and now we welcome Lisa Sharpe who will take on the CT (07725 657 363) and we have a vacancy for a Horse Trials manager. Any offers??? Any of these team managers WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!!!!  The first qualifier will take place at King’s Sedgemoor on November 6th 2016 for the Winter Dressage in which 2 members ride a Prelim test and two ride a Novice test. The final for this competition is next Spring. We also need helpers for this day – half a day would be great – please contact Marian or Margaret. All tests at the qualifier and championship are on a surface for this competition. So to the Winter competitions – we have dressage and jumping at King’s Sedgemoor and dressage at Kingfisher.   We need helpers for both competitions and training days and will be very glad to hear from you if you can spare a couple of hours on any of the dates. Please contact Alex Green re the dressage days as she has kindly offered to sort all the entries and we are now running the EQUO events management system for those who prefer to enter this way – so the day organisers are only that – entries and times taken care of – you run the actual competition day only! The membership fee has been held at the 2015/16 level and membership is due for renewal on November 1st. Please renew promptly! We hope to see you at the AGM on November 23rd at Long Sutton Village Hall – free supper – presentation of annual awards and for entertainment we have our very own local international show jumper, Harriet Nuttall talking about her life on the circuit which should be very interesting. World Horse Welfare will be there with Christmas Cards etc. – so please do make use of this opportunity to buy cards and gifts from them. Do come along and tell us the things YOU would like to see the club putting on in future. The Supper Evening with BBC equestrian commentator Mike Tucker – Reliving Rio – is almost upon us – if you haven’t yet booked – contact Margaret NOW! Tickets are going fast! We have some training opportunities for everyone this winter – clinics with our usual instructors – Amanda Edmonds, Ed Hobbs, Gill Longhurst and Sue Petty. We will have our annual visit from Jane Holderness-Roddam in January and have a test riding day with List 2 BD judge Lynne Baldwin in February and we are really excited about a Dressage to Music day which we have managed to arrange with Gaynor Colbourn in November. This sounds expensive but for a professional studio produced CD it is in fact excellent value and the music will be YOUR choice. We hope that a lot of you will come and watch that day too. These three clinics are being held in the new indoor arena at World Horse Welfare. We hope to see you out and about at our events this winter If you are not riding – please offer to help at one of the events or training sessions – just a couple of hours would spread the load on the regulars!!!.

Main Club contacts:  

• Margaret Peverley – 01935 473 188
• Marian Draper – 01458 241 506 / 07885 301 898
• Facebook / e-mail programmes: Alex Green 01460 281 032
• Treasurer/ Membership: Julia Down – 01373 461 807

Our Team Managers are:

• Dressage – Carol Plested – 07973 360 968
• Show Jumping – Sara Bartlett – 07967 208 778
• Combined Training – Lisa Sharpe – 07725 657 363
• Horse Trials –  we have a vacancy for a Horse Trials manager!