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British Dressage Summer Para Championships 2018

We took three horses and riders to this event which was held at Solihull Riding Club 1st-2nd September 2018. Daniel Olley competed on his own horse Rogan and Alice Lundy competed on Hugo.

For the first time ever, the RDA teamed up with British Dressage in order to run a Championship for riders with intellectual difficulties. Qualification was via the RDA Regional Championships and therefore Jessica White and Truffles also joined us for the long trip north!

Jessica and Truffles competed in the walk and trot championship on Saturday coming 2nd, and they were also the highest placed junior. This was an incredible achievement especially considering this is Jess’s first year competing. We believe she has put in an order with her parents for her very own dressage diva in the near future!

Daniel and Rogan were first to go on the Sunday in the Grade IV Silver Championship. Rogan was fairly lively for the whole weekend and tested out Daniel’s stickability before the bell went but got on with his job once he was between the boards! They finished with a very credible 63.7% to come 5th in their first big championship. They have now returned to Hartpury College in order for Daniel to continue with his degree and hopefully they will be back with us next summer.

Alice and Hugo competed in the Grade I Silver Championship and produced another very consistent test to score an impressive 69.37%. They won the class to become Grade I Summer Silver level Champions! This is a huge achievement in Alice’s first affiliated year of competition and we are sure she has a very exciting future ahead of her. She will now transfer to riding Mariah and will be contesting Winter Qualifiers aiming to go to the Winter Championships in February 2019.

National Championships 2018

The RDA National Championships were held over three days at Hartpury College in Gloucestershire 13th-15th July.

It was an extremely busy year for Arrow with 7 riders qualifying, riding 3 different horses.

The first Arrow rider to compete was Jane Kingsford (coached by Sophie King) riding Hugo at 8.30am on the Saturday in the Grade 6 walk and trot dressage test. This was Jane’s first taste of the Nationals and she rode extremely well to get 68.61% in a very high scoring class. They finished 14th.

Next to go was Marcie Webb (coached by Holly McConnell) also riding Hugo in the Grade 6 walk, trot and canter test. This was also Marcie’s first experience of the Nationals and she coped very well with the atmosphere but admitted to being a bit tense which caused Hugo to go slightly faster than he needed to at times! She scored 58.23% and finished 17th in a very large class.

Last to go on the Saturday was Emily Harvey (coached by Holly McConnell) riding Mia in the Countryside Challenge. Emily rode extremely well and scored a huge 89%! She led the class for most of the morning and was only pipped to the post by 0.2%, finishing a brilliant 2nd. I’m sure next year she will be the champion!

That concluded competition on the Saturday, and then the Arrow contingent were seen dancing the night away at the disco in some very dubious outifts!!

First to go on the Sunday were Jessica White (coached by Holly McConnell) and Truffles in the Intellectual Difficulties walk and trot dressage test. Neither Jessica nor Truffles have been to the Nationals before but both of them looked very comfortable in the atmosphere and produced a lovely test to score 71% and finish joint 3rd.

We then had Rebecca McGeoch (coached by Sophie King) and Mia in the Grade 1 dressage. Rebecca has competed at the Nationals many times before but hadn’t been for about 5 years.

On Thursday 5th July we hosted the Bluewater Business Forum’s summer event.

We demonstrated our new mechanical horse “Jeremy” who was very well received, we may have a few people wanting to come and have a lesson in the future!

Everyone then had a buffet dinner and drinks while we did ridden demonstrations in the indoor school. Anita used one of her youngest riders Eguardo who rode Sam to show the work we do in the early days on a sheepskin saddle.

This was followed by Daniel and his own horse Rogan who rode through a dressage test they will be performing at an upcoming international competition.

We hope everyone enjoyed the evening as much as we did.

May 30th

On Wednesday 30th May 2018 Arrow hosted the RDA Regional Championships for the Greater London Region.

We had 9 riders representing Arrow in the dressage classes, and 1 rider in the Countryside Challenge.

All of our riders had put in so much hard work in the lead up to this competition and we are so proud of all of you.

Sadly not everyone can qualify so commiserations to Riscenda Morenas, Poppy Fawsett and Zoe Carter, but we know you will bounce back and keep working hard. Zoe was particularly unlucky because her usual mount Hugo was unwell and unable to compete as planned.

Our 7 riders who qualified for the RDA National Championships at Hartpury in July are as follows;

1. Marcie Webb riding Hugo

2. Jane Kingsford riding Gyp

3. Jane Styles riding Mia

4. Rebecca McGeoch riding Mia

5. Monique Lock riding Mia

6. Jessica White riding Truffles

7. Emily Harvey Riding Mia - countryside challenge

Congratulations to all of you, and we are really looking forward to seeing you compete at Hartpury.

May 14th 2018

We hosted a lovely evening at Arrow in order for the outgoing Mayor of Dartford to present her final cheques to her chosen charities.

Rosanna Currans has been extremely supportive of the Centre during her year-long term and we received a total of £9,681! We were not expecting such a large amount and cannot express how thankful we are for such a generous contribution. We have enjoyed attending a lot of the charity events Rosanna has organised over the past year and hope that she will continue to be involved with us in the future.

Feb – May 2018 British Dressage Para competitions

We have been out and about competing quite a few times during the first part of the year, with the aim of riders qualifying for the British Dressage Para Summer Championships being held at Solihull in September.

Katherine Mannion and Monty have been taking a short sabbatical, so we have been concentrating on Daniel Olley and Rogan, Alice Lundy and Hugo, and Hannah Clark and Mariah.

All 3 combinations have been doing extremely well and having a lot of fun in the process! Alice and Daniel have both qualified for the Championships in their respective grades and will be contesting the silver sections. Hannah and Mariah just missed out on qualification but will be back out competing again soon hoping to qualify for the Winter Championships.

September

Jodie Phillips Demonstration Evening

On Saturday 30th September 2017 Arrow hosted a dressage demonstration evening led by Jodie Phillips, who was assisted by one of the top young riders in the country Lauren Phillips.

Jodie used a range of different horses and riders to discuss and demonstrate competitive dressage from both the Para and able-bodied side.

Our very own Katherine Mannion and her horse Monty demonstrated training techniques for Grade I riders, and we also discussed how an able-bodied coach/rider can assist Katherine by schooling Monty in a certain way.

We then looked at Mariah who has the potential to compete in the higher Para grades and she was ridden under duress from Jodie by Vanessa!

After the interval we were treated to seeing Jodie’s own horse Daffy, who has competed at Prix St George level doing some very flash moves and learnt how she trains the more advanced movements like flying changes and half pass.

The finale of the evening was seeing Lauren ride her horse Polly through a freestyle test to music which she recently used when competing internationally in France.

The evening was a massive success and raised over £1000. We are extremely grateful to Jodie and Lauren for giving up their time and bringing their horses to Arrow.