Purpose This blog is intended to be a replacement for the Branch Bulletin.
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Please extend a warm welcome to following new members of the branch:
Maddie Aloof, age 12, from Ardingly,
Poppy Barrott, age 11, from Danehill,
Steph Barnes-Capps, age 20, from North Chailey (returning member),
Winifred Buckwell, Age 5, from Ringmer,
Celia Bristow, age 11, from Streat,
Yolanda Etherington, age 10, from Uckfield,
Jaze Karrouze, age 11, from Ringmer,
Livvy Logan, age 11, from Buxted,
Chloe Marriott, age 12, from Uckfield,
Anna Massey, age 14, from Crowborough,
Jaimee Rush, age 7, from Seaford,
Phoebe Slade, age 13, from Horsted Keynes,
Felicity Woodiwiss-Reid, age 8, from Hadlow Down.
I hope all the new members will quickly settle in and start to enjoin the fun, companionship and comradery offered.
The Christmas programme has now been published, lets hope we don’t have more bad weather as happened last year.
Finally don’t forget we have an indoor Show Jumping show at Ardingly on Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd January 2012, something to look forward to after the holidays.
Mike
After the disappointment of being balloted out of Sands Farm, the mini team had a very successful day at Golden Cross on Oct 29th, finishing 3rd overall. Xanthe also finished a very impressive 2nd in a highly competitive, large class. The team was Xanthe Fairhead on Zac, Georgia Corrin on Daisy, Evie Pope on Martini, and Eleanor Reffin on Tilly.
We are currently organizing teams for the next date on November 20th, everyone is welcome and an Instructor is there to help. Riders 12yrs and under. Email names to Hazel Perry please.
Angela Stafford took the team, and it was great to have two new team members Georgia & Evie joining regular team riders Xanthe & Eleanor.
Lots of SJ practices were held throughout the summer which many members attended and great progress has been made. We are aiming to have another practice in December and our branch show has classes for Mini-mini as well. 10yrs & under.
Thanks to Sonia Harvey for the above. Mike
Please extend a warm welcome to following new members of the branch:
Scott Beasley, age 6, from Copthorne
Pippa Bowley, age 10, from Fairwarp
Amelia Easton, age 8, from Fairwarp
Ella Farnes, age 7, from Ringmer
Rebecca Greaves, age 8, from Peacehaven
Mia Moore, age 10, from East Hoathley
Evie Pope, age 11, from Horsted Keynes
Francesca Turner, age 10, from Plumpton Green
Lauren Vane, age 11, from Uckfield,
I hope all the new members will quickly settle in and start to enjoin the fun, companionship and comradery offered.
We now have 174 members making us one of the larger branches.
Mike
Congratulations to the following members who have passed Pony Club Efficiency Tests over the half-term holiday. Well done everyone!
C+ Test (Riding and Care)
Jenny Baker, Jessica Copsey and Lara Curtis
C+ Test (Care)
Daniel Dickens, Alex Irwin and Emma Robbins
D+ Test
Benjamin Berrill, Lauren Briggs, Sophie Duffield and Eleanor Reffin
D Test
Francesca Fairhead
Don’t forget to start working towards your next test! You should have been given a syllabus; let me know if you need one or look it up on the Pony Club website which has the advantage of being fully up to date.
Mike
Sarah Bane is a friend of Gill McPate and she came to the last day of Mini Camp and took a large number of excellent photographs of the campers, helpers, instructors and ponies. I have finally found the time to sort through them and publish a selection on my website. Click here to see them!
Many thanks to Sarah, we all hope she will come again and take pictures at other events.
I am, of course, always appreciative of pictures and reports from members, ex members and our extended family of supporters.
Finally, who was Spider Man?
Mike
My thanks to Claire Fry who has kindly submitted the following report and photograph:
 I don’t think anyone could quite believe Chloe and Big Dan went and won the Novice Area Show Jumping again, especially ME (Mum) !!! The first thing I knew about it was when Sarah shouted ” S*** we’re off to Cheshire again!!! “.
After a very exciting start to the day with all the novice team (Chloe Fry, Abi Martin and Francesca Oliver) jumping clear in the first round, the weather turned for the worst and in the 2nd round Chloe jumped clear and Abi and Francesca unfortunately ended with faults. So by the end of a long day Chloe had won the Novice and Lara Curtis and Duke had come 6th in the Intermediate and was just outside the qualifiers for the championships.
Then we were off to the Novice Area Eventing where the two novice teams who consisted of Chloe Fry, Jo Mitchell, William Heagerty, Alex Irwin and Olivia Greenwood, Hamish Heagerty, Abi Martin and Annabel Irwin did very respectably but unfortunate not gaining a place at the championships except Alex Irwin and Percy who won their arena and Chloe Fry and Big Dan coming 6th in their arena who did not quite qualifier.
The great news was we had two going to the Championships and Jo Mitchell, who had won her arena at the Area Dressage, but could not make the Championships.
On Friday 26th August Alex came over to ours and Chloe and Alex rode Danny and Percy over to Sarah Muggeridge’s to stretch the ponies legs before we loaded them for the long journey to Cheshire (and it was long, nearly 8 hours after we got stopped on the M25 for two and half hours; that’s 8 hours of listening to 3 teenage girls laughing and singing etc. and of course Sarah who made everyone laugh with her eventing stories !!!!). The girls put the ponies in their stables and Sarah, Fiona and I cooked dinner and told the girls to GO TO BED.
Next morning Chloe and Sarah walked the first round of the Show Jumping whilest Alex and Beth groomed and got Danny ready. I couldn’t watch like I normally do but was very pleased to hear they jumped clear just getting 2 time faults which Chloe was disappointed about but soon realised how well Dan had actually jumped.
Then for the 2nd round (I couldn’t watch again as it was too big and no way I would have jumped it!). Chloe’s Dad thought I was silly not to watch so he went with Beth, Alex and Sarah. They jumped the best round ever so I hear and went clear without any time faults. So althourgh they did not go into the jump off, as there was 10 double clears without time faults, Chloe has finished her time with Big Dan with a double clear at the Championships which can’t be bad.
Alex and Percy had their Dressage Saturday afternoon so it was Chloe’s turn to groom for her with the help of Beth again.
They did a very respectable test so we finished the day in good spirits.
Sunday was a very wet day and poor Alex and Percy had to show jump in the worst rain I’ve ever seen and unfortunately Percy slipped into a big parallel and Alex fell off. We were all very disappointed as this meant they could not go cross country under the Eventing rules. I would like to say how proud I am of Alex as before long she and the others girls were laughing and joking again (and All The Way Home !!!!)
It was a great experience for all of us which we all enjoyed. Also big thanks to Beth Giddings who groomed for the girls all weekend and Sarah Muggeridge who came with us because there was no way I could have helped the girls with their riding.
Claire
I am always pleased when members write about their experiences and the fact that Sienna has also written about the Mounted Games Team’s visit to the Pony Club Championships in addition to Ace is a lovely bonus. As they explain, Sienna and Ace have both become to old to compete again next year; they have done us proud!
Mike
Pony Club Championships 2011
2011, another year Southdown East has qualified to the PPC Pony club championships, and ever since 2006 when we first qualified it’s been a great success every year, and 2011 was no different!!
After qualifying from the Area 11 PPC competition on the 22nd May our pony club mounted games team, made up of me, Sienna Howell, Finbarr Blair, Ace Robins, Rosanna Curtis and Finley Walsh were on our way to the zones, although with 10 new races to practise it was back to square one.
After a lot of practising and a lot of encouragement from our trainer Katy Pheasant, we were ready for the zones on the 2nd July. Unfortunately our team got off to a disappointing start, and it took us almost the rest of the competition to get back on track, however we all pulled through with a lot of hard work as a team, and got ourselves a respectful 10th place qualifying for the intermediate championships.
Thankfully, all the races were the same for the championships, so practising consisted of polishing off little details, and after another month we were off to the pony club championships for the 6th year running! With it being at Draycott house in Derbyshire. We drove up on Sunday 14th August to stay overnight and to hopefully get a good night sleep before the competition started at 10:45 on the Monday morning, although I think the camping is the children and parents favourite bit! So once ponies were sorted ( by the mums mainly ) with corralls, feeds, rugs etc we were all made to sit down talk tactics and clean tack… no course we didn’t! All parents sat down with a drink and sent Mrs Lee to get a take away, whilst us kids ran around enjoying ourselves playing football, chatting, playing cards, laughing and having some team bonding time! Sadly the evening came to an end when Mrs. Lee (our team trainer for the weekend) sent us all to bed.
Everyone was up bright and early feeding, cleaning and tacking up ponies, and once we were all ready we headed off to tack and turnout whilst still clean! Eventually after a bit of waiting around the competition started with the tack and turnout placing, which surprisingly we weren’t placed in! But with our parents watching at the side lines, along with the one member of our fan club Helen Waters (who has been a committed member for several years!) The competition finally got under way with Sue Lee taking the roll as our team trainer as well as the guv’ nor and making sure we were there in the first heat of bending, which went perfectly getting us into the first final, and things continued that way with us making every final, until it came to ball and bucket which we sadly didn’t make the final for, but running 2nd meant we had to keep working hard! And with that and big sack being the only races we didn’t make the final for meant we came a pleasing 3rd overall, and we were happy with that considering Finbarr managed to do a successful vault, Ace kept smiling, Finley didn’t make a mistake, and Rosanna and I kept the boys in shape!
And another year at the championships came to an end, and a final end for me and Ace, with this being their last year, but we got some memorable pictures and hoodies and went home with great rosettes and memories as a team !!!
We would all like to thank Katy for her hard work and commitment as our trainer, I will really miss her! Also Sue Lee who has supported, organised and always been there for all the PPC teams.
By Sienna Howell
I have now posted some pictures from Junior Camp. Click here to see them!
Mike
I am grateful to Ace Robbins for sending me the following report on the Mounted Games Team’s experiences of going to the championships. There’s also a lovely picture at the bottom of this post of the team with their rosettes!
Mike
Pony Club Championships 2011
We arrived in Draycott House and met with the team. This year’s team were:
• Ace Robins on Beauty
• Sienna Howell on Mandy
• Finbarr Blair on Star
• Finley Walsh on Dee
• Rosanna Curtis on Missy.
This was mine and Sennia’s last year at PPC Games so we were pleased the team got to the championships. We set up camp for the night and corralled the ponies. In the evening we chilled, played, ate and talked about our fast approaching competition. In the Morning we got the ponies ready, we were raring to go. This year our trainer for the championships was our governor Sue Lee as our normal trainer Katie Pheasant wasn’t able to come. We wanted to make Katie proud as she’s been an great trainer.
The competition started.
• The first race, Bending we were in lane 1 heat 1. We roared up there and got in the final. In the final we done pretty well and were ready for the next race as we were in heat 1 for that as well,
• Second race was 5 mug. In mug we also got in the final and were doing well.
• Third race, ball and bucket we didn’t get in the final as I made a mistake, my ball bounced out the bucket!!
• Over the next 3 races we got into every final and everyone in the team was doing well. We were now in 2nd place over all.
• Seventh race Pony Club Pole, our best race (we have been good at this all season!). We got in to the final where we came 2nd. A good result, we were all in high spirits and very pleased.
• Then the next race, Balloon a very fast race. We got in the final in 1st place and in the final we won!! This meant we were still in 2nd place in the overall standings!!
• In the next two races Pony Club and Big Sack we didn’t do as well, as in pony club a race were you pick letters up from a bin and hang them on a pole which in the end is suppose to spell out Pony Club Finbarr and I made a few mistakes, Finbarr knocked the letters off the bin and I spelt it wrong, we’ll never live that down!. Big Sack is very hard as four of you have to jump in the sack at the same time, very tiring, we had improved just are jumping was not fast enough.
The competition was over and overall we came third!
We got into 7 out of 10 finals. Which was really good as it was our last competition ever as a team! Overall the championships and the whole season have been really, really fun and I’m sad that I won’t be able to do it again, but hopefully SDHE will have a team that will get there next year and do even better!
Give games a go, it’s great fun!
By Ace Robins
SDHE Mounted Games Team
Another of our talented branch members has held the branch flag high in the national Pony Club Championships in Derbyshire. Lizzie Tillard came 2nd in her arena in the Open Eventing competition! This is a terrific result; no other rider from Area 11 was placed in the the open competition and Lizzie is therefore ranked within the top ten Pony Club eventers in the country.
Click here for full results.
Lizzie has kindly submitted the following report:
Having been lucky enough to gain a place at the National Pony Club Open Eventing Championships I headed up to Derbyshire on the 14th August. We arrived amongst many others and I immediately set out with John Bedford to walk a very technical XC course which later proved to cause a few problems for some. Rising early next day I was pleased to see I wasn’t the only one feeding my horse in pyjamas and sooner or later it was time for the dressage! Twiggy did a lovely test and we finished on a score of 30.0 penalties. I then went on to pick up a unfortunate 8 penalties in the SJ having knocked a couple of poles down but compared to our SJ round at Area this was certainly an improvement! Finally we moved on to the XC, and having shaken off the butterflies and run over what line I was to take at each fence about ten times I set off. With mum on the timer we weren’t hanging around as we began to tackle the course. The XC course included several offset corners and lots of skinnies but Twiggy took them all in her stride and flew round the course, coming through the finish with only 1.6 time penalties and a fantastic clear. I gained a very rewarding 2nd Place as many others also struggled to get a clear round SJ and luckily a good dressage meant I could just afford those SJ penalties. I was so pleased as Twiggy really jumped her heart out and we both worked so hard for a place.
I would like to thank Louise Lewis for organising all the Level 5 Eventing throughout the season but most importantly I want to thank John Bedford as without his teaching and advice I couldn’t have done it alone. He has been there to help at not only the Open Champs but at the Novice and Intermediate and I think I can say on behalf of Amy Dunn and Hazel Perry he has been great at getting us all the way to the top of the pony club and making us a strong team of three. I was lucky enough to have John to walk the courses with, otherwise who knows what line I would have taken through some of those combinations!! Furthermore John even managed to give me a well needed SJ lesson before the Champs whilst also running Junior Camp. He has been a great instructor understanding both Twiggy and me making it possible for us to achieve so much whilst maintaining his good humour which never fails to amuse us all! And finally a big thank you to mum for all her help as well and keeping us all fed and in good spirits!
Lizzie Tillard
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Next Branch Event Our next event will be unaffiliated winter dressage at Plumpton College on Sunday 2nd February.
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