BUSA competitions

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Emma123

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Over the last 4 weeks I've competeting for Surrey uni in the BUSA Riding compeitions
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And we won our league so qualified for the regionals yey! I'm in the B team though! Bearing in mind I hate dressage and am most definitly a SJ I didn't do too badly.

1st compeition was a home, we did quite badly as a team and came 3rd out of 4 but I came 3rd individually! Couple of pictures:
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Next up was Imperial where the team came 1st yey and I came 3rd again
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My dressage horse was dead to the leg so here's me knackered:
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Then we went to Brunel and competed at Snowball farm! Team came 1st again yey I didn't get placed as my dressage was bad (Grr hate dressage lol!)
Video of dresage and jumping:
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Last was Kent where we had to beat Imperial to qualify regionals! Luckily we did and came 2nd to Kent and Imperial 3rd! I came 1st individually though yey!
Video of dressage and jumping:
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By the way we get 7 minutes warm up on your dressage horse, 5 minutes on your SJ then you go in having never ridden them before so I'm chuffed we qualified!

Sorry bit of a long report
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Hope it doesn't bore you too much!
Comments/criticisms welcome
 
Aw! They are such lovely pics, Im slightly jealous though, Ive been doing the BUSA competitions this year and the horses I have ridden have been absolute tanks! We got through to the regionals too, but I dont think Ill be seeing you at the nationals as two of our team cant make the regionals
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!
 
Hehe thanks guys
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Aww Jess thats a shame they can't make the regionals! And that you've ridden tanks lol-luckily most of ours have been nice horses.
 
Well done, great photos too.

I loved BUSA competitions and really miss them now I've left uni - I even went to watch one with my old team, I just can't keep away! It's great now they're doing regionals for B teams, we went straight to nationals when I was in the B team, but regionals then nationals in the A league.

Good luck at Regionals, my old team have also qualified.
 
I do BUSA too - in my unis C Team. We didn't qualify sadly but I got an individual 1st so was happy anyway!!
I like the format of BUSA but we had a few 'interesting' judges... I don't like how dressage is all about where the horses head is - the judges at most of our comps (all except the one where I got 1st!!) placed the horses forced into 'outline' with choppy paces over those moving forward freely and nicely through their backs. Don't think it encourages the best form of horsemanship if I'm honest, I've seen some interesting techniques in the warm up (mostly saw, saw, saw)... I enjoy the comps but wont be doing them again next year I don't think. That wasn't aimed at you at all by the way, I was really impressed by your test at Kent, looked lovely
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Agree with your horse-tanks!! We had one jumper that was built like a brick sh*thouse and I had a jumping horse that I trotted round the majority of the course as I was scared it might drop down dead on me, was puffing waaay too much
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Interesting to see the heights of the jumps in your videos too - do you think the courses were built up to height?? All the comps we went to, the courses were very small and straightforward and everyone went clear!! At our home comp we wacked them upto full height and made it testing - our SJ horses aren't the easiest to begin with and we only got 4 clears, was quite nice having not all the weighting on the dressage!!
 
Fortunetly most of the riders in our league all rode nicely and didn't 'saw' on the mouths but I know what you mean!

I found the two videos I showed and one picture (Our home comp) that the fences were tiny
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. Imperial built up to height though which was nice!

Fraid none of it was a dressage compeition- our home comp had three clears, Imperial had a girl fall off and break her elbow
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, 2 other falls and loads of stops (not sure why though!) Brunel most had a fence and Kent nearly all went clear.
 
Blimey your SJ does sound like it played more of a part - I wish ours did!! I think my team was definitely most confident and competent SJ but sadly the first 2 comps we pretty much all finished on our dressage scores (except one faller after the first fence, forgot about that!!). Poor girl breaking her elbow though - eek...

Good luck with the nationals!!
 
SJ heights were always 'interesting' when I was competing as well!! we always built ours to 90cm square (so max height!) if we could, remember one year couple teams complaining so we got the measuring stick out to prove they weren't over height
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I do though remember one year at regionals (1st team!) at the old talland where the fences were about 75cm max when they were meant to be 1m! unsurprisingly almost everyone went clear!!
 
This was my last year in BUSA. I wish it wasn't all down to the dressage especially when the judges are blind! The rest of my team were 1st years so hopefully they will get the regionals in the next few years. good luck at the regionals. This year only Edinburgh had their jumps at max height. But they were riding at Kingsbarn, where Ernest Dillion used to teach, and they had classy horses some jumping 1.20 classes and dressage horses which were competiting at elementary.

(I just put some photos up in the gallery)
 
I'm a regional coordinator for BUSA and have had a fab region this year, loved all my teams and its great someone from every team has qualified for the regionals meaning I get to meet them all too!! Just had a delivery of rosettes for my regionals!1

Well done all of you - top tip, try and book a lesson at the place where your regionals is held to get the inside info on the horses!
 
Congrats and Good luck at the regionals

I am going to make myself sound very old now, I did it back in the days of BPSA (Polytechnics - those things that exsisted before unis). The first comp we went to the horses hadn't been on grass for the whole winter and we warmed up outside for the dressage, there weren't many people left on the horses by the end of that
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The year that I did we got to the finals but cheating Oxford changed all the rules so that they won. The horses in the final were awful, my dressage horse was a hunter who was very stiff as he had been out the day before, and it was my SJ horses second time ever round a course.

The winners from BPSA and BUSA then went on to represent GB in the international comp. The standard wasn't that high some unknown called William Fox Pitt won.
 
Well done! I loved competing at BUSA (Keele) about 7 years ago. We qualified but it was the foot and mouth year so it didn't happen. I loved riding different horses. I remember a very riding impressive dressage horse and BSJA 13.2h at Liverpool, and also a very young coloured who had never been in the area before! A fab experience. Unfortunately when everyone came to us they had the choice of a few old stiff hunters, but it shows who can ride
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