British University Equestrian Sport

Jenny923

Jenny923

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Does anyone know any details on this?
I'm going to university next year, and want to continue doing competitions, but won't be able to get home enough to do this. So thought, ride for the university?
I understand its show jumping? and you ride a random horse that you get given. I cannot find any more info on it though. How much time do you have on the horse before hand? What sort of height are you doing?
Any information would be very useful
thankss
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Planning very early arnt you
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1) You dont need a horse
2) You showjump and dressage
3) You get 15mins i think (?) to ride horse before hand
4) I *think* the international champs are medium dressage and 1.40m jumping? the champs are being held this year 20mins from me, so will be watching!
5)heights vary from comp to comp, so need to check rules
6) Depending on the uni and course you want to do, it can be very competitive or not at all
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hope thats ok (and right!)
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oo thank you, yeh thats great. i don't know how i'll find riding a strange horse, just got to get used to it i guess.
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Yeh i can't wait for uni, especially when i found out i con ride there!
 
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you need to swap horses as much as you can with your mates - its great craic!
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I swapped horses with my friend today in the middle of go as u please
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would say you get used to it, but obviously you cant cos they are all different LOL!
 
http://www.bucs.org.uk/sport.asp?section=896&sectionTitle=Equestrian


That gives you all the info you need
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It's a brilliant, and completely unique format. League rounds are usually 3 or 4 local(ish!) unis and you get 7 mins to warm up for a novice level dressage test, and 4 jumps for a max 90cm course, all on new horses (unless it's ur home comp obviously). Regionals the standard goes up slightly and then for Nationals the dressage starts with a team test - very interesting experience i can tell you!!, and the jumping starts at 1m. There are 4 rounds at nationals going all the way up to medium and freestyle to music, and 1m20 jumping - but only the final 2 best riders in each discipline get to that! Emily Llewellyn was last year's champ by a country mile.

I'd say definitely do it, it really improves your riding and you meet some awesome people!!
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p.s. if you go to Leicester the horses are ace!! :P
 
i love uni riding, it's great because you get to ride so many different horses. It's realy good fun. It can be quite competitive to get on the team but standards across unis do vary. We've started our first training for this year and have our first competition in Dec.
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Beware that it isn't always good for your riding! I was captain of our uni team and I got into a lot of naughty habits finding shortcuts to try to get a horse working nicely in 7 mins. I got very good at having the horse in a pretty outline without actually having it working correctly over its back etc. as at the lower levels especially the judges didn't seem to notice the difference!
Those naughty tricks took a lot of ironing out after leaving uni!

That said it was great fun and as I didn't have a horse at the time it was the one way that I could continue to ride and compete.
 
milz88 - what course are you starting? I'm at Coventry!
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There's a riding society just starting up but for now its just riding lessons at a local riding school, not sure if we'll ever get up to the competing stage but if there are enough decent riders to make a team I don't see why not. Here's the link to the facebook group http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=307620145296&ref=ts
 
I found it tedious - we were given riding school nags that wouldn't go forward properly and frankly were never going to be made to work correctly (or even close, realistically) in one session. Not my idea of fun, but then I lived at home and was riding and competing my own at the same time, so when it came to a choice as to which to do, there was no question!
 
Uni riding is great. Have two of my own horses as well as riding 3 others and I still love student riding defo give it a go! x
 
I still live at home and compete my horse, but still enjoy uni riding.
It works out a fraction of the cost and there's no mucky jobs involved, you just turn up and ride your dressage test, then pop on another horse and round the showjumps.
Agree with gamebird, though the judges have to be BD listed so you would expect them to notice.
You do sometimes get the old stubborn plod, but it's nice to have a challenge and ride different types, plus you only get marked against the others on that horse so it doesn't matter if you get the "bad" one.
 
and don't expect to immediately make the team just because you've had your own horse and compete. If your uni team trials are anything like mine were last year, it's actually those people who have spent years at riding schools that tend to do better funnily enough. We had to ride 3 horses (so swapped every 20mins) in ours, flat and jump and get the best out of them.

So get practicing on other people's horses but don't just stick to comp horses as such. You'll be expected to get a 14hh riding school cob round a 3ft course one week and the next will be a jumping horse etc. Like gamebird said, you do get into bad habits especially for the dressage as it's about getting them into an outline ASAP etc. Not actually how you ride...
 
'tis fab fun!!!! I was captain of my uni team and we had sooooooooooooooo much fun and went to the nationals that year too
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Although you do pick up some bad habits, like GB said, it's also good for your riding in sense of riding a lot of different types of horses. It was particularly good for my show jumping.
 
Its the best thing ive done at uni so far (including my actual degree) you get to hang out with horsey people and have a laugh riding horses you would never come across let alone ride otherwise! I agree that bad habits are easy to pick up but so what!!
This year it is also judged on style for the show jumping section so evenly weighted between dressage and sj where as before it was heavily weighted on dressage. Give it a go i say!
 
Anyone know if Northumbria Uni has a 'riding' clique? Or if Newcastle Uni collaborates with Northumbria? Daughter going there in September, and would love to take part!!!
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milz88 - what course are you starting? I'm at Coventry!
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There's a riding society just starting up but for now its just riding lessons at a local riding school, not sure if we'll ever get up to the competing stage but if there are enough decent riders to make a team I don't see why not. Here's the link to the facebook group http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=307620145296&ref=ts

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brilliant, thanks for that, I will have a look around, I'm going to start adult nursing!!! what do you do? my brother just started there in september too. It would be fab to do some competitions, I bet I could get ann or nigel taylor to do some lessons or clinics for us, lend us the facilities, as I know a girl who sometimes works there who did it too she got on the teams,
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and don't expect to immediately make the team just because you've had your own horse and compete. If your uni team trials are anything like mine were last year, it's actually those people who have spent years at riding schools that tend to do better funnily enough

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This is definitely true - one year we were in a league with a few very posh eventers where it was evident mummy and daddy had bought them some very nice horses back home....and they were beaten on standard riding school cobs. Some yards you get given ex-advanced eventers to ride (we were based at Kenneth Clawson's place so had quite a few of Oli's old ones!!
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) and at others you get riding school plods. When I went to regionals I had to attempt a novice/ elementary level dressage test on a 14hh arab who specialised in horseball!!! interesting to say the least!!
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My uni doesn't compete, hopefully by my 2nd year they may consider it though. Particuarly as a very good eventer comes here!! seems madness that we don't!
 
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Which uni are you at Jess? it all sounds very fun I don't mind riding school horses it will remind me of doing my stage 1, that was funny.,
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I'm at Sussex, I know Portsmouth have a very decent Riding Club that compete in BUCS. (can't remember username but someone on here organises it I think)
 
ah I see, well I had a look on the BUCS site and it doesn't look like Coventry have a team yet either, its a very responsible job being captain, I had a look through all the documents, maybe we will have a team for next year, hope you get one too.
 
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