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► Information

Team Training and Competitions

Training/Lessons

***NEWSFLASH*** This  year's lessons will only cost £20 a time!

We are fortunate enough to have close connections with Summerhouse Equestrian Centre based just outside Gloucester, roughly a 25 minute car journey from Cheltenham. As well as being a leading riding school it also regularly puts on dressage and show jumping shows which attract some of the country's top riders. At Summerhouse we have the use of the on site instructors, horses and the facilities, all of which are of an excellent standard. We will use Summerhouse for all team training sessions, group lessons and home competitions. 

The horses are all experienced and many compete in national competitions across a range of disciplines. All lessons this year cost £20! Obviously we understand not everyone can afford regular lessons/team training, so schedules are planned to suit all team members as best as possible. However if there are members who want to have regular or weekly lessons, this can easily be arranged as we have a Wednesday afternoon lesson pre-booked for the whole year.

Competitions

The Equestrian Club competes within the BUCS league; competitions consist of a relatively simple dressage test and a show jumping round (no higher than 3ft). Riders are paired with a different horse for each phase and receive marks based on style and technique over fences for the SJ round and the dressage is marked in the normal manner.

In the dressage four teams of four riders will compete using four horses, meaning that each rider from a team rides a different horse. Then in the jumping it's the same again except there are different horses. The final marks for each phase are allocated on how well a rider rides the horse compared to the other people who have also had that horse - for example the best rider on a horse will score 0, then if the next best is 5 marks behind they will get 5. The marks the rider has received in both phases are then added together, so basically if you finish on 0 for the dressage and 0 for the jumping you are pretty much guaranteed a win! For more information on the competitions, check out the BUCS website - they are unlike any other comps!

Depending on the amount of competing members the club will usually have 3 teams (two competitive and a friendly) each consisting of 4 riders and a reserve. These riders will be chosen through tryouts in which everyone has a group lesson in order for us to gage each rider's abilities. 

Tryouts will be held during mid September - Watch this space for further details!

There is a chance for both the Championship team and an individual to reach the regional competition, and the Trophy team can reach Nationals but only as a team.