Riding Clubs - worthwhile?

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Joyous70

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How many of you here are members of Riding Clubs? I am looking to try and compete a little and also benefit from training and clinics, would joining a Riding Club be my best option?
 
I have been a member of one for 20 odd years. I went a couple of times the first year then not again for 18 years as I was busy having private lessons to go eventing. At that time, no it was not worth it to me.

Now I am retired, doing fun stuff as opposed to striving to go 3* (was 2*) and am generally in it more for the social and to enjoy my horse. I am having a lovely time. Loving the lessons I have been on. Was stressed at camp, but that was because of stuff that was happening at home as the camp itself (and my horse) was/were wonderful.

So, I guess it depends on what you want from it. The lessons are good quality but tend to be in groups, whereas I used to prefer private.
 
I have been a member of one for many years bur barely use it.

I have found the RC comps at local venues good in the past when producing a young horse, and good for practice. However I have only once been part of a team as mostly when I have been asked, I wanted to prioritise competing BE/ BD and that never went down that well. If I had a string of horses it might be different but as a one horse owner, you can't do it all.
 
I think it depends, I tend to join if I am keen to compete there / join in group lessons / group activities. I have joined different RC depending on where I am keeping my horses, and where is close and what we want to do. So I joined one, because had regular indoor polework lessons, and regular dressage private lessons.
 
I think useful if you like to stick with one group and certain venues, and for the social and team side. For me I go to so many different ones that it wasn’t worth it as the area covered several RCs.
 
I also think it depends on what you want from it. I rejoined last year thinking I'd get my young horse out to group lessons but at the time my club weren't doing clinics with anyone I wanted to have lessons from :oops: so I had one individual lesson and that was it. They did put on an equidance clinic so I did that with my established horse and then did the FSM qualifier and went to the champs. But I can't do any other dressage/ team comps etc due to my BD points so I decided not to bother rejoining this year. Bit of a shame because it would have been good fun with current green horse.
 
I joined one a bit of a drive away 5 years ago. Helped a lot and attended some clinics, but found it very cliquey.
Last winter I joined most local one as management had changed and it had moved back into the county area. They run regular clinics at very reasonable rates, not all instructors are my cuppa but I take B along so she can work with others and on occasions I have to button my lip and paddle on. Most of the time I come away with something to work on or a grin that we have achieved something. (Even if it was staying calm for much of a session lol)
We also have a monthly individual dressage instructor available at reduced cost and through the winter sj individual lessons coming up too, as well as group pole or grid sessions.
I've met a good number of people there and met up off radar for impromptu hacks or xc schooling etc.
Teams are just getting going over this summer, its coming together steadily.

OP, membership usually runs from end Oct or end of year, worth joining and going along as it's not a huge cost in the big scheme of horse owning, or just visit a couple of times before coughing up.
Like with all clubs and hobbies, you need to make the effort to get to know others :)
 
I love my RC, and have been a member for about 15 years now. Was on the committee for a couple of years, though haven't been on it since child came along.

We organise weekly group lessons and SJ competitions over the winter, and a few shows over the summer.

In my view, its definitely worth it, and I've made a lot of friends.

Ours has lots of junior members too, and my son is doing a junior team SJ league for the next few Saturdays.. Some have no juniors at all though.

Fiona
 
Not at the moment but have in the past.

I spent years in one riding club before I moved - great people, very social and loads of stuff to do across a variety of activities.

When I moved I found the local club a little less active, but still pretty good, maybe more jumping focussed (and by then I was only really doing flatwork) so I joined but never did anything with my dressage horse - it did help me meet new people though. When I got a young horse it was however superb for getting him out and about locally, I did a few group clinics, flat and polework - the latter seems to be a big hit with this riding club.

I’d say go for it, you get out what you put in though, so I’d really recommend joining some clinics and volunteering when pleas come out. It’s all run on the goodwill of volunteers
 
I'm a member of a RC, it' a big, reasonably successful club and it's good fun The training is local to me and generally use people i rate, it's not always group lessons but for me doing some group stuff is quite useful. I've met some lovely people over the years and some I'd rathr avoid but that's life isn't it? I'd give it a go, it's not a huge financial investment and who knows what you may get out of it?
 
There were lots of riding clubs represented at Blenheim Eventer Challenge last week. Some clubs are very competitive and want to enter teams in all the national competitions, and the standard is high. Other clubs are very much low key and maybe don't have that many members who want to or have horses able to do the national competitions.

Our local clubs got together and do a series of competitions - , eventing, showing and take it in turns to arrange a competition with
classes in the dressage ranging from Prelim upwards, so it is still competitive but more within reach of members.

It all depends, some just have a larger programme than others. Some only organise shows, some include social outings to and visits to Olympia for instance.
 
I was in a riding club for a while. It was great, I went to a couple of competitions and the people were friendly. but I struggled with the helping days. I typically could only ride at the weekend at the time, so to give up a riding day was difficult. And I didn't have anyone I could volunteer to work instead. So I gave up.
 
I’m a member of two local dressage focussed riding clubs. One runs small informal comps which is a good way to get your horse out and/or try the next level up. The other focuses on BD comps. Both offer good clinics, talks and opportunities to get involved (eg writing). Both offer a discount on entry fees so you can recover the costs, which aren’t that high anyway. You also get to meet people so actual competing becomes a more social event. I’d definitely recommend it.
 
I'm a member of one of the local riding clubs. I just do the monthly dressage competitions. They have do a lot of clinics each month but don't do them as I'm having private lessons so really down to how much I can afford each month. Not at all cliquey, although Indie is quite well known after taking off in a dressage test.
 
I'd love to if I could find a decent one nearby, if anybody could recommend one near to Derby that has regular training and not just club shows I'd bite their hand off
 
A friend of mine joined a local club that did club shows only and organised some training herself. She had eventing ambitions and wanted affordable lessons - it turned out that so did a lot of other folk and there is training of some sort most weeks now. All this training means that the club teams do better and often qualify for championships which are a lot of fun whether or not you are competing.
 
If you are lucky enough to have an active RC near you then they can be great fun. I am lucky enough to be involved in one that pushes the teams etc but also does great grassroot comps for those who may never do affiliated. We also run BD affiliated comps too inc paras
 
I thought about it as used to livery across the road from a yard with a lot of long term or committee members and was briefly on the same yard as one of them. Their attitude put me off joining, it has to be said!
 
I was a member of a great RC before I moved the horse too far away for the weekly evening training sessions to be doable. I focused on the jumping side of things as I found the dressage/flatwork side more cliquey. It did wonders for my and my horses confidence levels - we 'won' a chase me a charlie after one lesson at 1.20m when we'd previously been jumping 80-90cm max :D.
 
I joined a newish local riding club to get my ex racehorse out and about and it was invaluable. I don’t use the clinics etc so much now as moved yards and a bit further away but they are very good. Club is successful but also lots of social. Unfortunately horse now has too many BD points for us to do too much but we normally do the winter dressage. He won at the music champs last year in one of the direct entry classes which was fab. So yes worthwhile.
 
i was a member of a couple of riding clubs and made lots of friends and learnt loads as i helped with things like course building, setting out dressage arenas and writing for dressage judges. i think you get out of them what you put in, we used to have quite a few clinics with well known instructors and also had some lecture/demo evenings in the winter. lots of fun..its worth joining and finding out if it is for you...
 
I think it is worthwhile if you have a young horse and want to get him/her out and about. Plenty of chances to try out different disciplines and also get to qualifiers and even championships.
 
Riding clubs can be very different, on and off I have been a member of three. Two very competitive,one not.
I suggest you go and watch a lesson, most of them have websites. I just wanted extra lessons and to help.
Some do get dominated by certain members interests so you just need to find one that suits you.
 
I have belonged to three over the years and after the initial year, didn’t re-join. One was terribly clicky, and another really badly run and was constantly nagging for volunteers. They even threatened to publicly name and shame those who hadn’t volunteered. The third actually wasn’t bad and gave me a great leg up with my dresssge a few years ago, but they had a change of committee members and it fell apart a bit. Generally I didn’t find they suited me (or i suited them) so I haven’t joined any riding clubs for a few years now.
 
Muddywellies said:
I have belonged to three over the years and after the initial year, didn’t re-join. One was terribly clicky, and another really badly run and was constantly nagging for volunteers. They even threatened to publicly name and shame those who hadn’t volunteered. The third actually wasn’t bad and gave me a great leg up with my dresssge a few years ago, but they had a change of committee members and it fell apart a bit. Generally I didn’t find they suited me (or i suited them) so I haven’t joined any riding clubs for a few years now.
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as someone who was on a riding club committee if there are no volunteers there can be no shows. we found that the same people helped all of the time , as did all of the committee members(all volunteers as well) and i must admit we all got a bit fed up with the people who competed and never helped. we ended up making it a condition of membership that everyone had to help once a year, and if they were not prepared to help we didnt want their membership. after all once a year for a couple of hours is not too much to ask when some of us were running things every month and not competing as we didnt have time..... a good riding club is fun to compete with and also fun to help so maybe you were unlucky....
 
I belonged to one years ago when I was eventing full time as I thought it would be very useful education for my young horses. It was made very plain to me that the club would rather not send a team to the areas than have me on a team. The Secretary said she didn't like professionals using the club when it should be for amateur riders only.

I though about joining my local one recently as they organise a lot of training, which again would have suited my young jorses. Sadly I don't rate any of the trainers they use!
 
splashgirl45 said:
as someone who was on a riding club committee if there are no volunteers there can be no shows. we found that the same people helped all of the time , as did all of the committee members(all volunteers as well) and i must admit we all got a bit fed up with the people who competed and never helped. we ended up making it a condition of membership that everyone had to help once a year, and if they were not prepared to help we didnt want their membership. after all once a year for a couple of hours is not too much to ask when some of us were running things every month and not competing as we didnt have time..... a good riding club is fun to compete with and also fun to help so maybe you were unlucky....
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We are finding the same in the clubs I’m in. I don’t understand why people don’t get that it only works if everyone mucks in. People have said to me that they can’t help as they want to compete. They don’t seem to see that if we all had that attitude they wouldn’t be able to compete at all. Personally I don’t think that it is too much to give half a day a year to support the competition programme. If competition only happened with paid staff then most of us wouldn’t be able to afford to compete!
 
Another sucker for punishment here as a committee member for a riding club.
I joined the committee years ago as wanted to be more involved and love it however as with a lot of things you end up taking on more and more, which I think then makes other do less and less. In a way you become a victim of the clubs own success as when you put on great shows everyone wants to compete and no one wants to help. Somehow we manage although more and more I have to rope in friends and family to help on show days.
We very active as a club and love that we have the reputation of being the most friendly and welcoming in our area. We actually have a lot of members who are very low level leisure riders who come to our regular training. we also have members who are much more competitive and do the teams etc so would say we have a good balance.
I'm looking forward to taking my youngster to our regular training sessions soon then eventually get him to some of our competitions - just need to convince others to take on the show secretary role lol!!
 
splashgirl45 said:
as someone who was on a riding club committee if there are no volunteers there can be no shows. we found that the same people helped all of the time , as did all of the committee members(all volunteers as well) and i must admit we all got a bit fed up with the people who competed and never helped. we ended up making it a condition of membership that everyone had to help once a year, and if they were not prepared to help we didnt want their membership. after all once a year for a couple of hours is not too much to ask when some of us were running things every month and not competing as we didnt have time..... a good riding club is fun to compete with and also fun to help so maybe you were unlucky....
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To clarify - I volunteer an awful lot at various venues, but still felt it just too much being constantly chased for volunteers. It was just one club out of the three I mentioned - they were rather full on with their demands and I just spent the 12 months I was a member, feeling rather ‘got at’ and like they thought I was slacking. I don’t belong to any clubs now and happily offer my services when I can, often travelling some distance to do so. But now it’s because I want to rather than have to. And I totally agree that if everyone volunteered even once, it would make like much easier all round. Sadly not everyone puts into the sport as much as they take out. (But that’s a topic for another day)
 
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