PETPLAN EQUINE AREA FESTIVAL Reports From Around The Northern Region 2009!
PETPLAN EQUINE AREA FESTIVAL AT REC EVENTS 22-23 AUGUST
by Helen Walker
Maybe not quite the baking hot sunshine one might hope for at this time of year, but considering the weather of late, Richmond did well for the first of four Area Festivals for the Northern Region. On Saturday in particular, you could be forgiven for almost thinking it was summer!
Richmond is always an enjoyable venue (particularly in the sunshine, with plenty of tables and chairs dotted around the ringside from which to view the action) – spacious, nice surfaces, good cafe, lots of seating and a high level of efficiency. Those of you who go to Richmond will be familiar with the chap with the clipboard who is adept at getting you in and out of the ring on time, (and my thanks go to him in particular this time for reminding me to drop my whip as I came out of the warm-up!) He is proud of the changes that have been made at Richmond over the last couple of years with the addition of the second indoor school and revealed that he has more up his sleeve. They hope to extend the original indoor arena by some 17 metres and install a sound system allowing, amongst others, those of us who enjoy a spot of dressage-to-music to go and practice our routines.
Anyway......
Saturday 22nd August
The Area Festival Preliminary and Novice classes were held on Saturday and were well supported with more than 20 entries in each. At this level there are four qualifiers with scores of over 62% that go forward to the Petplan Equine Area Festival Finals held alongside the Winter Dressage Championships at Hartpury, Gloucestershire, in April next year. (At Elementary and above it is the top two with scores of 62% to qualify.)
One of the nice things about the Area Festivals, apart from rosettes to tenth place, is the chance to have two judges evaluating your test. It’s always interesting to see how the scores compare and to see what the different judges have to say. The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, and there are usually warm up tests and freestyle music classes to choose from too. Two scores of 62% and above since January 1st entitles you to enter a Festival – so why not have a go?!
Don’t forget you are not allowed either commander or whip in these tests and forgetting this rule will result in elimination.
Sunday 23rd August was a little more dull and blowy for those competing at Elementary and above, but was still well supported. The atmosphere was very relaxed - apart from in the office where they were running around trying to coordinate competitors and prize- givings which seemed to come thick and fast!
I went back for a stab at the Elementary music which is a new level for me so I found it lovely to have a chance to watch those competing at a higher level, particularly those at Prix St Georges in their elegant tailcoats and top hats. (Sigh!) I also spotted a celebrity sitting in the back of one judge’s car – our Regional Development Officer Chrissie Havis!
(Sadly I have to report that Moorlands Tortilas failed to drop in for a warm up before the European Championships!)
Congratulations to all the winners and all those who have qualified for the Festival Finals!
(Helen was 3rd= in the Novice Restricted Well done!!)
For results go to
Photos of the Area Festival can be viewed at
LARA DENNIS AT MANOR GRANGE STUD PETPLAN EQUINE AREA FESTIVAL
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On Friday 4th September, local international para dressage rider, Lara Dennis, achieved her biggest win at an able bodied competition.
While other competitors horses found the conditions too unsettling Lara, riding her bay mare Polly battled against the elements of gales and rain, to win the Advanced Medium Restricted Pet Plan Regional Championship Final by a whopping 5%.
Lara who has only just moved her horse upto this level and has been off this summer, due to injury. Polly has only been back in work for four weeks and this was only their second advanced medium test.
Lara comments:”Since I moved her to a quieter yard with fantastic facilities she has really improved; he big test today was the flying changes as she loves to do these but has a habit of taking over and not waiting. She tried her heart out though and is building in confidence all the time in fact I’m now going to buy my top hat and tails and hope to do an Advanced test before my operation in December.”
Lara also would like to thank her new sponsor Nutrecare, who are backing Lara towards 2012, Faye Haywood, and Sharon Cooper, horse physio and dentist and her long standing sponsors, Matchmaker equestrian, and Simon Gibson.
Lara is now through to the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships 2010 at Hartpury, Gloucestershire and we be working toward her music qualifiers over the winter.
Lara had the honour of been asked to do a dressage to music demo for The British Horse Society this month, and she has also been at the Horse of the Year Show where she made a guest appearance on her sponsor Nutrecare’s tradestand.
A humorous look at the PETPLAN EQUINE AREA FESTIVAL AT MANOR GRANGE STUD on Sunday 6th September by a Novice Idiot and her long suffering mount!
I got up at some ungodly hour o’clock, horse not happy, I had only dragged him in, muddy, out of the field at 0.45am that morning. So armed with Red Bull for the lack of sleep, and paracetamol for the hangover and Ibuprofen for the broken toe and my new Country Music CD we set off! LATE!! All the planning the day before was to no benefit. My horse was a pig to plait, lost my stock pin overnight, then I realised I had no fuel in the car aarrghhh!! Then on top of that started to follow a horsebox only to find it was going somewhere else!! Then we get close and the road is closed, so feeling sick I arrived even later and then only had 20 mins to warm up.
Sharon Wharton pictured above
I am stricken with a fear that I am absolutely rubbish, I am a little fat woman on a nice looking horse. The last two weeks of the summer holidays have been a nightmare. One of my four kids (what a disadvantage!) had just come out of hospital after having his appendix out, so I haven’t even been riding! Then when I saw everyone looking so fantastic, so well schooled with lovely paces, I nearly turned and fled! We dressage riders obviously are the contributors to half of Daz’s profits, white boots were the order of the day! Everyone looked so fantastic and so intimidating!! Made me glad I had got up THAT early and plaited up with white tape.
There was nothing for it, I just had to go in and do it. I managed a respectable 65% in N35, which put me equal second but I lost out by one mark on the collectives, I was a happy bunny with a yellow rosette. We had made a couple of silly errors, fell into trot, the usual inept things I allow him to do!
N22 I decided I wouldn’t push, I would sit there and TRY to look attractive, difficult when you are short and fat and your horse is bone idle! So lacking in impulsion we ended up with 64.1% and ended up 6th, I did it! The relief was immense! And none of my sheets said, ‘get off, don’t ever ride again’ which is always a bonus.
The mounted prize giving was a bit of an anti-climax for me, I just wanted my sheet and to get home by this time. Though if I had won, I would have done a Carl Hester lap of honour, whooping as I went, so well done to all those above me I hope you enjoyed it.
The venue is fab, it was very smart even though this was the third day of competition. Well done Manor Grange everything was well organised and ran to time. Will I go back next year? Definitely. In fact it is such a great venue, I must make more effort to go there the rest of the year too.
If I have a complaint to make it is the fact that the photographer, took too many photos for me to look at, my button came off my jacket, so my fat belly was on show continually and I was too embarrassed to look at them all with someone looking over my shoulder!! I tell you what though, it kept me away from the chip van, which did a roaring trade! So hopefully next year, when I come back, I might be a bit thinner! Enter, have a blast, if I can do it, so can you.
Sharon Wharton & the long suffering Jekyll
PETPLAN EQUINE AREA FESTIVAL AT MANOR GRANGE STUD by Flo Plummer
We entered for the Area Festival of 2009 at Manor Grange Stud after qualifying at Prelim and Novice levels, hoping to improve on our interesting experience of 2008! When I took Ella (Pirella) to do the Prelim after qualifying on a ticket, still being quite green at 6 and having done very little, the Area Festival of 2008 brought lots of experience but no rosettes to report! So the work continued into 2009 as we prepared for the competition again. It was our last main competition of the year so I hoped it would be enjoyable as usual. The Prelim on the Saturday went ok but Ella seems to find them a little dull and get bored half way through and we had a rather interesting spook, which still to this day I haven’t a clue what it was all about but obviously something very scary in the bushes! So we were placed 9th in the Prelim 19 final and 2nd in the warm up-prelim 15 judged by the great Chrissie Havis! A pleasing result considering the few glitches and the close competition. I knew on Sunday that competition for the Novice would only get more difficult, so I wasn’t expecting anything. Imagine my surprise when we came 2nd in the Novice 35 warmup with 65%. Our luck continued into the final where we won the Novice 22 final with 67.41% which was fantastic! A complete turn around from last year and a great way to round the year off as we now look forward to the Petplan Equine Area Festival Championships at Hartpury in 2010.
Flo Plummer pictured above
Results available on
PETPLAN EQUINE AREA FESTIVAL AT SHEEPGATE EC
A note from Corinne McNamara
”Just to let you know that the Pet Plan Equine Area Festival at Sheepgate on Saturday was a real success with Alex and Rocky finishing 8th in their novice class. This is really pleasing as despite Rocky being a little nervous before arriving at the show he behaved impeccably throughout his two tests at the show. We had a really good day seeing this as hugely beneficial to Rocky who also behaved in a full scale prize giving at the end of the day. This was his first time dealing with clapping etc.
We were really pleased with Sheepgate EC, as a venue as they put on a great show making it truly enjoyable. Here is a picture of Alex.
Alex McNamara
Sheepgate AF results can be found on
PETPLAN EQUINE AREA FESTIVAL
VALE VIEW EC, LEICESTERSHIRE 3-4 OCTOBER
By Madeleine Hill
It was a wild and windy day at Vale View and not much of a view either on the day I went, due to a fire in the bales in the field next to the lorries. Luckily the wind was blowing it all across the road and not across the arena or warm up! It was really windy and there was some really heavy rain so some poor folk had to ride their test outdoors in the downpour, or perhaps worse; ride in the indoor school which rattled and groaned and sounded like it might actually take off. Still, everyone seemed to have a good time and Vale View has a good cafe (with a slippery floor – my dog kept making a run for it and we all ended up in a bit of a tangle), so everyone could get warm – it’s always great to have somewhere where you can have a coffee and a chat AND watch the tests too!
Olivia Steanes won the Prix St.Georges on Elitaer, a twenty-year-old German bred gelding. Liz Taylor and Portrandle, who earlier won the advanced medium open, were second. But the highest score of the competition went to thirteen year old Lucy Pincus and her homebred pony Sheepcote Sandmartin – they won the preliminary with 74.31%. Amy Knight and Weston Peninsular won the advanced medium restricted.
Mother and daughter team Sue and Ann Staines had a good weekend. Sue was second in the advanced medium open on B E Hopeful, a fourteen-year-old mare by Golden Heights out of an Irish Draft mare. Daughter Ann, a full time nurse, won the elementary open on Comte D’Orsino and came second in the medium restricted.
Sophie Skipper and Madam Akzent won the medium open, Louise Goland and Finnegan of Kerry won the restricted. The elementary restricted class was huge – with nearly thirty combinations taking part – the eventual winners were Sarah Shone and Zacharby. In the novice Melanie Rowley and Wellbeloved won the open (71.03%), and Deborah Smith and Black Magic were the restricted winners (67.24%).
PETPLAN EQUINE AREA FESTIVAL AT VALE VIEW by Hannah Doyle
We took part in our first Petplan Equine Area Festival at Vale View on 4th October. We had qualified for the Prelim and Novice, but didn't get the Novice entry in before the deadline. The people at Vale View said that if someone dropped out of the Novice, we could take their place. We had finished our Prelim test, and were looking at the results board when the lady from the office came up to tell us that there was a space, if we wanted it - in 30 minutes..... Max was quickly tacked up and spruced up again. I hadn't learnt the test because I didn't think I'd get a slot, so I had a lot of cramming to do! As it happens, Max performed a lovely test - I was so proud of him, and we came 7th.
Hannah Doyle pictured above
VALE VIEW PETPLAN EQUINE AREA FESTIVAL
By Erin Williams Aged 12
I have just been to my first Area Festival at Vale View with my pony Dublin in the Medium Restricted Class. It was quite exciting as I had only done a couple of shows with Dublin and only ever done 2 medium level classes before (just enough to qualify!).
I really like Vale View (nice shop and cafe!!) but it was SO windy when we got there everything was blowing around and my white bandages were blown around the lorry park. Dublin was really fresh and was leaping around the warm up arena - so much that my trainer Sonia Webster had to send my Mum away to the cafe as she couldn’t watch!
We were going to do a warm up class but as it was at 8.00am we decided not to bother so warmed up for longer. Good job as Dublin needed quite a bit of working in!
The indoor school was lovely at Vale View and the judges sat at tables with flowers on very close to the edge of the arena. I let Dublin have a good look at the tables and flowers before we started the test. The test had to be done from memory and went really well with no major mistakes.
When my score of 68% went up I was so pleased and kept my fingers crossed that I would stay in the lead. I did!! It was a bit nerve wracking though. I got my first ever sash and really enjoyed my lap of honour!!! Dublin looked really cute next to all the big horses in the prize giving.
I am looking forward to going to the festival national final next year at the Winters and hope to do some FEI tests at the Premier Leagues as well.
Vale View Area Festival results
THANK YOU VERY MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO SENT IN REPORTS / SNIPPETS / PHOTOS!