Is anyone elses University Riding Club rubbish?

[1928sky]

Having seen all the posts about University Riding Clubs I am feeling disheartened. I wish mine were that good! I joined last year as a fresher, had to beg to go to team trials and was most unwelcome- isn't that what trials are all about evryone can have a go! It soon became apparent that it wasn't how well you can ride or your experience but whether you were friends with the team captain. Since then its been a secret society- no one knows where the team trains, competes or even how well they do. The trials were a joke though - the 1 jump was 1ft if that and I was under the impression that at BUSA championships they can be up to 1.20m, most muppetts can jump 1ft!
Lessons tend to be the same- Advanced appears to be if you can walk, trot and canter! got some weird looks when asked to discuss the horse I was given and gave a proper pony club B test sort of analysis of the problems and how I'd improve them when everyone else was like "he has a bumpy trot and erh thats it"! i soon gave up going! Thats the trouble with riding people totally overestimate their abilities!
grhh so thats my rant over! needless to say I won't be joining this year!
Your experiences please?!

 

[ihatework]

I loved my time at Uni and ended up captaining the BUSA team.
Out trials were open to absolutely everyone but unfortunately we could only have 24 people in the club each year which meant 8-10 freshers each year. Therefore it only really catered for people who could ride to a decent standard anyway. (There was another society that catered for more novice people as well though)

The club did have a reputation for being a bit snobby though ... however I would hazard a guess the rumours were started by people who didn't get into the club and were a bit peeved.
Uni riding clubs use riding school horses (aka donkeys) and we would get people coming in telling us how much they had competed and how fab they were .... turns out they couldn't ride one side of a normal horse as mummy and daddy had spent X amount on a ready made push button horse for them!

My riding improved so much during the time I rode at Uni.

 

[Gingernags]

Thats a real shame, ours was great. We had a mini-bus load went off to a riding school and we had beginners, intermediate and advanced classes and went hacking and on weekends away and all sorts.

Find some like minded people and take over the riding club when elections come up!

And I think the jumps at the competitions were mahoosive, I hate jumping but got thrown in at the deep end when our team went down with flu - terrifying (but jumped clear... there's a first - me actually jumping!)

 

[peapod]

Which uni are you at?

I love my uni's riding club - my only gripe is that many of the people who go to the beginner and novice lessons don't come on the socials - it's a real shame as that's the best way to get to know people!

Edit - sorry, quick reply got me again! I was asking SJ_Sapphire!

 

[Puppy]

My vet warned me to stay away from mine.....!

 

[eahotson]

Never been to uni but find some general riding clubs very good and some not so good.

 

[1928sky]

I'm studying medicine at Nottingham. Medicine wasn't the ideal subject if I wanted to do horses at University but hopefully I should be able to afford them eventually after about 20 years of training!

 

[pixie]

Ours was terrible.
The riding club consisted of eight slots for a lesson once a week. Each time, those slots were taken up by people who kept their own horses at college and could ride or organise lessons on their own horses anytime, thereby horseless people didn't get to ride. Fscking selfish cnts

 

[teapot]

~makes mental note not to make ours like that~

That's if we get the go-ahead.

It's nice to hear the negative sides to it as well so can have a balanced approach

 

[MagicMelon]

Anyone could try out for our uni teams. There were about 30 of us trying out, took bloody ages! I got on one of the 2 teams. I found them a bit unwelcoming as I think the "pals" tend to get on the teams usually so one or two of us where the outcasts!

The horses were insane which we rode. And the dodgy thing is that tactics where to choose your worst horses (that only you knew how to ride!) if it was a home competition (ie. other uni's come to you). I remember one horse HATED whips, we knew that so of course we were fine but the others did not.... the horse actually reared up and fell over on one girl.....

Our trials, we were jumping about 2'9 which is still not very big compared to what you do at the usual events. But I think thats because there were a few beginners in the trials so they couldnt ask them to jump very big!

Our training was ok. We had someone who was meant to have been a grand prix dressage rider so I guess he knew what he was talking about although I found him a stuck up muppet!

I think the club (ie. non team) training was pretty basic like you describe. But I think that was simply because most of the club riders were basic!