Cross country excursion pencilled in for Saturday 15 March

Plans for our pre-Flowerhill cross country excursion on St Patrick’s weekend are coming together in sketch format. Castle Leslie’s course is currently closed because of the wet ground but will re-open when conditions permit. the forecast for next week is fairly good so who knows what might be possible.

Dirraw Farm near Ballymoney is definitely available and is exactly the same distance away as Castle Leslie. However, since many of our cross country enthusiasts are heading that way two weeks later for the team hunt chase, it might not be ideal.

Plans will be finalised closer to the time. All suggestions are very welcome. Contact Libby on 086 830 1392, if you’re interested in going along.

Keeping up to speed with Health & Safety

AIRC HQ have organised a series of Health & Safety seminars to keep members up to speed on this serious topic. Each club must send representatives to at least one of the seminars. Full details are on the AIRC website where you’ll see that the closest venue to us is Sligo:

Tuesday 15 April
Best Western Sligo Southern Hotel, Sligo, Co. Sligo (7:30pm)

Quite apart from fulfilling our obligations, these events are truly informative and helpful. If you’re available to attend, you’ll find the experience worthwhile. In particular, our squad of safety officers should do their best to fit it into their calendars.

Donegal Clubs meeting, Tuesday 11 March

Subject to the suitability of the date for our neighbouring clubs, the next meeting of the Donegal clubs will take place at Tir na nOg on Tuesday 11 March. Subjects covered will include the final of the league, upcoming events such as the Team Dressage & Show Jumping Challenge, regional qualifiers, etc.

All members are welcome to attend. If you can’t attend but would like a matter raised, contact Cormac or Libby in advance.

Results and points from NWL, Show 2

Sunday’s leg of the Northwest League proved a great success with Inishowen doing a great job of running the event. It’s impressive to see just how quickly this young club has come to grips with managing riding club shows.

Full details of the day have yet to filter through but there are already reports of the Advanced Intermediate class where only three riders made it to the jump-off in a hot competition. Our youngest member, Claire Cuffe, showed all her seniors just how to get the job done with a smashing performance on her veteran partner, Judy. At the other end of the height spectrum, Louise continued her blossoming relationship with Tutu with a double clear and joint victory in the 60cm Welcome Stakes class.

Thanks again to Liz Potter for getting the points and results through so quickly. The next leg of the league takes place on Sunday 9 March at Templemore.

NWL 2014 Results | Week 2
NWL 2014 Points Table | Week 2

Focus on details on Friday evening at Glenleary

It was a cold night at Glenleary for the first of Mary’s Friday evening flatwork lessons. Louise, Christopher and Vicky were put through their paces in the first lesson while Nadine, Tanya, Vera and Libby came in for scrutiny in the second. An innocent little bit of warming up gave Mary all the information she needed to zero in on the evening’s theme: correct warming up of both horse and rider.

Using transitions and a simple turn-on-the-forehand exercise she reminded her pupils of some basic principles. She discretely rolled her eyes to heaven as she observed some of the bad habits that had set in over a long, inactive winter before diplomatically making one or two recommendations to each rider. Everybody was sent home with some homework and minds are already focussed on next week’s session.

Dates of regional qualifiers confirmed

Dates for our regional qualifiers have been confirmed by Head Office, as follows:

4 May – Masters Series Qualifier
25 May – Team Show Jumping Championship Qualifier
6 July – Team Dressage Championship Qualifier
10 August – Horse Trials Qualifier

As mentioned at our meeting in January, there remains the possibility of running two dressage qualifiers, one at each end of the region. This is a topic which will be addressed at our next Donegal Clubs meeting. Presumably our end of the region would run its qualifier on the same day (6 July) as the other one.

Note that we are not obliged to qualify for the Horse Trials Championship through our own region’s qualifier. Traditionally our club has gone the Border Counties route, Glaslough being a great deal closer than Athlone or Ballinasloe!

For now the date of most relevance to the club is Sunday 2 May, the day of the Team Show Jumping Championship qualifier for a coveted spot at the RDS.

Flatwork lessons start this Friday at Glenleary

Members have the opportunity over the next several Fridays to brush up on their flatwork skills under the eye of Mary Finneran. There are few instructors who are better able to identify and isolate one or two critical details to a specific horse and rider partnership. Mary doesn’t bombard her pupils with advice — she pinpoints small flaws which, once corrected, can transform the performance of the partnership and greatly increase their mutual pleasure in their work.

Vera is organising the classes at Glenleary on Friday 28 February and 7 and (tbc) 14 March. Contact her by Wednesday on 087 232 5632, if you plan to participate.

Sioux for sale

Ruth McCrossan has made the very difficult decision to part with her great coloured mare, Sioux Indian. Most of our members know this talented and colourful character who has been Ruth’s partner for several years now. She’s a cracking riding club horse and would also suit a competent and competitive teenager who wants to do a bit of everything.

See full details on Ruth’s ad on Done Deal.