Tomorrow’s first leg of the North West Riding Clubs spring show-jumping league has been cancelled for safety reasons. Details on how scoring for the league will be affected will be posted in due course.

The third one’s the charm, so they say, and so it is with a date for our Audrey Jacob Team Challenge. It is now confirmed for Sunday May 24th in Eglinton. Even more time to perfect your moves.

If it looks like heaven and sounds like heaven it probably is heaven. I feel a little escapism coming on.

This coming Sunday sees the start of the north west riding clubs spring show-jumping league. The first leg of the league is in Templemore Equestrian Centre in Muff and promises to kick off the competitive year in great style. Inishowen riding club is running the first leg and the action kicks off at 11.00, with entries being accepted from 10.30.

Classes will run in ascending order, starting with crosspoles and finishing with the advanced-open class at 1.20m. There will be a training class at each height following the graded class…for example there will be an 80cm training class after the advanced-primary class finishes. The training classes are open to all grades of rider at or below the height i.e an advanced-open rider may ride a 70cm training class but an advanced-primary rider may not ride a 1.0m training class. Your €15 entry fee allows you to jump in as many training rounds as you wish, as well as competing in your graded class, making the riding club leagues an excellent and affordable way to bring on young or novice horses.

As always, the social aspect of riding club is all-important, with the canteen open to supply hot cuppas and good grub for refuelling while you dissect the days classes and cheer on fellow club mates. Even if you are not competing its worth coming along for a couple of hours to meet everyone, share the craic and practice cheering. See you there.

Many thanks to Mary Devine for providing photographic evidence of the hardy crew who travelled to Twin Towns equestrian centre for this evenings lesson. Looking good folks

 

Having set myself the goal of taking part in my first ever one day event this year you can imagine my delight when I saw that AIRC  hq had published the dates and venues for all the national championships and the eventing championship is to be held in Flowerhill!  That’s all the motivation I need to get myself and Merlin started on a personal fitness and training regime. All the championship dates are on our Calendar page. Why not set one as your own goal now? You know you want to.

Our north western sub-region is part of the the greater Western region of the AIRC, which stretches from the tip top of Malin head to Kilbaha on the southern toe of Co. Clare. As a general rule clubs within an area are not allowed to run events in competition with each other, so getting a free date to run a show or training clinic can be quite difficult. Fortunately the powers that be agreed to the formation of our sub-region  and now we only have to worry about fitting our dates in around the other Donegal clubs (a tough enough challenge) and any national championships that happen to be on. The advantage of being in the AIRC is that all the affiliated events are available to you, with a welcome guaranteed at all of them. A friendly phone call to the local organiser will frequently result in a stable being found for your four-legged companion, allowing yourself and any significant others you want to bring along to enjoy a relaxing weekend away. Check out the most up to date version of the Western Region calendar here.

AIRC West Regional Calendar 2020

Intermediate riders may now compete in Young Horse and Green Horse competitions. Previously the competitions were restricted to riders graded Advanced Intermediate and higher.

In show jumping and eventing, the competitions are traditionally run over a 0.90m track while the young horse class is run over a 0.80m track at the National Hunter Trials Championships.

Riders who compete in a young or green horse competition in dressage or show jumping may still compete in their graded class on the day if they wish.

Young Horse competitions are open to horses aged 4 & 5 years while Green Horse competitions are open to horses needing experience and applies for one calendar year commencing 1st January.

The talk given by Jim Hickey on Thursday evening was a great success, with almost ninety people attending and taking away an increased awareness and understanding of the power of the mind in our day to day riding endeavors. Top marks to Marina for organising the whole event, which added a tidy sum to the club coffers and will help fund the next educational clinic.

With our positive mental attitudes firmly in place we can now start to put action behind our good intentions by taking part in the flatwork lessons this Friday evening at Twin Towns Equestrian Centre. These lessons are being organised by Vera and you can contact her on 087-2325632 via sms or WhatsApp to book a slot. Remember that you must have membership paid up before riding at an AIRC event.

The first of the year’s inter-club meetings took place at the Glencar Inn on Monday 20th and was well attended by all the clubs in the North West sub-region. Erin Fergus read the minutes of the last meeting (in record time…great lungs!) and our regional chairman, Daire, welcomed all and proceeded to keep the meeting moving in a very efficient way.

There was a lively discussion of the AIRC grading system, especially with regard to down-grading of riders, and it was agreed that the primary objective of the AIRC should be to encourage inclusion and participation even if that means a rider needs to be down-graded due to a change of mount.

A vote of thanks was passed in acknowledgment of the many years of service that Trish Warren gave to the region by serving as a very active member of the executive as well as being such an inspiration at grass-roots level.

It was agreed that the points system for deciding the showjumping rider of the year and the dressage rider of the year will remain the same, as will the system of voting for club of the year. We can already confirm that the annual dinner dance will once again take place at the Villa Rose Hotel in Ballybofey on Saturday 28th November. Get the hair dressers booked!

The approaching spring league was the next subject up for discussion. With the increased costs for Templemore Equestrian Centre (the first increase since 2006!!), combined with cost of judges, course builders and prizes, Cormac stressed the importance of clubs supporting the leagues to ensure their viability. One suggestion that was proposed, and got plenty of support, was the use of entry vouchers as prizes. By giving vouchers for league entries we will reduce the actual spending on prizes and will also encourage participation in future events. After all there is a limit to how many saddle cloths or headcollars a body can need.

Spring league dates and venues are as per the Calendar page. Stracomer RC are running their leg in Greenacres on the 8th of March and have said that they will be running the higher classes first to facilitate riders at this level who need to get home to work in the evening. More details of how this day will run will be published closer to the time.

In an effort to raise the profile of the riding clubs in the area Erica has agreed to become a PRO for the sub region and will keep a short but regular feed of information to the local media such as Donegal Daily and local papers. If anybody has any suggestions for raising public awareness of how much fun and value for money the riding club is they should contact Erica.

Daire also flagged the need for the regional training day to be organised promptly as submissions for funding from head-office must be lodged by February 29th. Our north western sub-region can draw down E800 towards training. Whether this is used to run one main event or divided over a number of smaller events is up to the clubs to decide amongst themselves. It was agreed that the format used for the past number of years, whereby all the clubs came together to share one main day, was working well and encouraged the all-important social side of the riding club movement. Inishowen and Tirconail riding clubs are jointly organising the day, with Sunday 2nd of August in Gordon’s Bay proposed as date and venue. Mona is organising the coaches and promises they will be top class. If the date and venue work out you could do a lot worse than book a stable or paddock for the Saturday night and make a weekend of it.

Word of the western region RDS qualifier is uncertain, with the dates of the 10th and 17th of May being bandied about. As soon as the date and venue are confirmed I’ll let y’all know.

The next inter-club meeting has been scheduled for the 17th of February at 8pm in the Glencar Inn. This is a little sooner than would be usual but it was felt that with the pending deadline for the training day funding application it would be beneficial to have a chance to work through any potential issues sooner rather than later.