Thinking of starting BD quest or maybe just bronze prelim?

Julia0803

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I was wondering if I could ask some advice please from those more experienced?

My son has been doing UA dressage for the past few years at intro and prelim. He started off getting early- mid sixties as although he wasn’t working the pony in a correct outline they were accurate and rythmical. He used to be HUGELY nervous and anxious but this has got so much better.

Over the past year they’ve been having regular lessons and they’ve worked hard and most of the time they now work in a more correct way and are scoring late sixties to mid seventies. They’ve completed a local regional UA championship recently and won their intro class, which was lovely.

So, moving on they need to step up the challenge a little more.

They’re not quite there with medium trot so think it’ll be the end of the summer before they’re ready for novice (pony is a little coloured cob so finds it a bit tricky and still not 100% sure what you’re asking of him, and son’s never ridden it before so it’s slower to progress than others with more experience might be).

His instructor had mentioned looking at BD quest or going ahead and competing at some affiliated prelims.

So I’ve been having a look at the BD website today and trying to work out what’s what.

Now if I’m correct, (which I may not be!!) quest is a league running from December to August? I’m thinking that maybe there’s not much point is registering and starting that yet as it’s already mid June so we won’t have time to do 5 competitions? He’s got PC area competitions and then camp coming up, so I just don’t think we can do it in time.

So I’m wondering if it would be worth while getting a club membership and having a go at bronze level prelims? I don’t think that will exclude us from participating in Quest next year?

If they’re only club members they can’t qualify for other competitions, areas, I think? Is that right? But their scores are recorded? But they can’t collect points?

If anyone could shed some light on what would be a sensible plan/goal that is going to challenge him a bit more but not going to completely trample his confidence, which has been hard won, I’d be very grateful.

Thank you
 

wkiwi

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For Quest, you join with a club membership anyway (£30), i.e. you don't have to do anything different, and it is £10 for the horse to be registered. You have the option of doing both quest and affil even at the same show if the venue runs them together e.g. i could do one test in prelim Quest and one test in prelim affil non-quest.

If you do quest you don't have to do 5 competitions. The scores for the best 5 tests count for the regional leader board, and the top 20 at each level on there at the end of August go onto the Regional competition (with the best 4 going to the champs). You don't have to have 5 scores to be in the top 20 if you are in some areas and your % are above 60 e.g. in the Wales region for prelim under 21 there are only 20 riders (at the moment) on the leader board so ALL will go through, even those with 1 point (which would be 60% in one test only).
There's only 6 in the Novice under 21 !!!

Go to British dressage website, click on the 'competitions' link in the left hand side panel, then a range of other things will come up in the left panel. Click on Quest, and then scroll down (takes me 14 'page downs' to get to the myquest leaderboard). And then click on your region to see what the current figures are for your area. Most of the under 21 numbers seem to be low :)
 

Julia0803

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Thanks Wkiwi!

Just had a look and there are currently 21 in the U21 prelim.

I’ll have a look at the dates coming up at local venues and see if we can make one!

How long does it take for BD to sort out paperwork do you know? For example, if I send bits off do I have to wait a few weeks before it goes through and I can enter?

Thanks very much for your help
 

wkiwi

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I sent by email, scanned in documents. I think the rider you can do online, but the horse needs a copy of bits of the passport.
I did me a week before entries closed for a competition and did the horse (as waiting on age imported) on the monday with entries closing on teh wednesday. I messaged via the facebook page to get things started (as I find their website a 'challenge' to get through).
The Quest lady is VERY efficient !!!! Leaderboard is updated every friday without fail, and she immediately sorts out any issues.
I think too you can enter with membership 'pending' once the process has started :)

If you only have 21 in the prelim, then you probably have less in the novice. Don't worry about medium not being established - I am doing novice 27 and 28 (not others as too hard for her) just because some venues only have one prelim and so she gets two experiences in teh arena.
She has scored just above 60 twice without being able to reliably canter across the diagonal (changes leads or trots), medium trot barely any difference, halts may or may not happen (got 3 for one). So now my mare is qualified (at the moment, assuming lots of people don't start doing novice suddenly) for the regional in both prelim and novice! Hoping by the time the regionals come round in september that she will be worth entering in the novice too. If you explain to your boy that his scores might not be great, it might give him a challenge to have a go at novice. Cobs normally do well in novice anyway as they keep their sensible head on!
 

Notimetoride

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Don't be put off doing novice just because of med trot. Just means you'll be marked down a little on that movement. He will pick up plenty of marks elsewhere in the test. Go for novice and enjoy the challenge!
 

Julia0803

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Thank you both.

I have just registered my son BD and will do pony ASAP. He’s got jabs on Monday and I want to change his name on his passport as BD name needs to be the same. There’s a 10 day turn around so it should be back by early July ready to go out by the end of July!

There are only 6 in the U21 novice but when I suggested this route to him he looked slightly horrified and said he wanted to be confident doing novice at UA before putting more pressure on himself and trying it at Quest. As I said, he does have an issue with self confidence, and a bit like the little boy mentioned in the other post, having been a high achiever academically, is even more worried than most about ‘failing’ in public. I can sort of understand, and as this is something he does for fun, we’ll just stick to prelim quest until we’ve managed an UA novice and he feels happier with it. Lovely pony does have a sensible head and is a really good boy when we go out, he loves a good party!

Thanks again, I’ll update when we do get out.
 

Julia0803

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Just thought I'd post a little update!

Well i booked the pair of them into their first prelim quest class. I wasn't sure we would make it as Ive had the worst month ever with loads of family stuff going wrong, with the dog, he got a slightly puffy hock two weeks before the horse box died etc etc...

But we made it!

And it was brilliant!!

They were the only one in their U21 section (which had the advantage that they would have come first even if it had been a shocker!). It was a lovely day, much cooler than it has been. It was much quieter than the usual unaffiliated stuff we do- and an afternoon class so no early start! Hurrah!


Anyway, they had a really good test, and got 71.5%. I was delighted with them. They won their class of one! ;) but also had the second highest score overall too, which was lovely.

Super duper proud of them.

They are off to pony club camp tomorrow and his instructor said they are going to work on the mediums! Novice here we come!

Thanks for all the advice and help
 

eggs

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Huge congratulations to your son. I agree that affiliated is often a lot quieter than UA so another good reason to do affiliated.

As others have said, there is no reason not to try novice. You only need to show a few medium trot strides and in the grand scheme of things it is only one mark in the test. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist but my trainer advised concentrating on getting the stuff we are good at better and not to fret about the stuff that is not so good.
 

Julia0803

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Another update.

Thank you to the posters that gave advice.

They qualified second in their league 😃. Super proud of them and off to the regionals at the end of the month!!

They’ve also put their brave pants on and out doing their first UA novice on Saturday!

Thanks again for the encouragement!
 

The Fuzzy Furry

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Another update.

Thank you to the posters that gave advice.

They qualified second in their league ��. Super proud of them and off to the regionals at the end of the month!!

They’ve also put their brave pants on and out doing their first UA novice on Saturday!

Thanks again for the encouragement!

Well done! :)
 
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