Dear Members,

What a fabulous few weeks we’ve had; the weather has been kind to us, our first events of the season are underway successfully following a really big effort from many of you to get our showfield spic and span again, and our teams have been going out and bring home loads of ribbons already. Well done to all of our Area 12 Hunter Trials competitors and special mentions to the Junior Dressage Team who represented Bath Riding Club and Area 12 at the Nationals at Hartpury – Ellie Riley and Lucy Grimshaw both with strong placings and Kat Riley bringing home individual 3rd place – a fantastic achievement.

Of course I also can’t forget the bumper training sessions currently on offer – a total of 7 full sessions this week (that is a whopping 50 of you attending training in just one week!). Please do bear this in mind as it is a phenomenally time consuming and difficult task organising so many of you into appropriate groups and times. Do try and be as flexible as possible, try not to cancel if you can help it and bring the correct cash and pay promptly (including your fine if you cancel at short notice). All this is very helpful. Please also give a thought for your poor training officer who religiously organises all of the sessions, responds to all your emails and requests, sorts out all the money and turns up to pretty much every session, and then starts all over again for the next lot of training – we really are very lucky to have such a good training officer in Janet.

I must admit, my horse and I have gone from strength to strength with regular training - from very humble (and wobbly) beginnings and nervousness to representing all the area teams and having full confidence in our partnership. It really is surprising how much it can keep on top of your bad habits and give you a real focus for your efforts. Every week I look forward to it and never fail to be amazed by the array of exercises and advice given by our fantastic instructors. In the past few sessions, I’ve worked over poles on a tight serpentine which was a fantastic suppling exercise, worked on having a forward canter over canter poles to prepare for jumping and improve the canter in general, taught my horse athleticism, rhythm and intelligence through a variety of grids and have worked on course jumping techniques to help my horse use his hindquarters better – And that is just in a week! My horse is definitely happier, fitter, healthier and safer and really looks forward to socialising with his pals at training. I really hope you are all enjoying the sessions as much as I am, whether you come along just for pleasure, to improve your horse or as practice for competition. I’ve also learnt a lot from watching others training over the winter months and have seen the results of the regular tuition. If you’ve not yet been to our training, then I would very much recommend that you come along and try a session or perhaps recommend to a friend to try – we now have 10 horses regularly coming to training just from our yard (enthusiasm is infectious!) and all are enjoying the benefits.

I look forward to seeing you at forthcoming training, camp and events and wish you all lots of fun with your horsies! Rachel

Rachel Yeomans
Chair