What do you do with your horse...

JustKickOn

JustKickOn

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On the competition side of things?

Just intrested in the reasons people chose to do show jumping or dressage or any other type of competition really.
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And do you enjoy what you do?
ETA- Are their any downsides??
 
We've done all sorts of competitions but really like show jumping. Downside to it is the hanging around waiting for classes. You never have any idea what time you will be jumping because it's mainly entries on the day & you never know how many will be in each class.

Dressage is the best for this, you get a time & within a few minutes of that time you will be in the ring.....downside, in my opinion, no where near as exciting as jumping, but the riding skills are appreciated, & we occasionally enter.
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I don't compete as such, just do pleasure / sponsored rides, usually ones around the 12 -15 mile mark, there are loads around us, the furthest we travel is around an hour and a half, and we have done rides virtually ever weekend since the end of August, and still got a couple more to go. I used to compete as a teenager, was in pony clud event team etc, but at the age of 35, am glad just to do the pleasure rides, its a nice day out, a change of scenery and I enjoy the whole day!
 
We event, SJ, hunter trial, dressage & we do sponsored rides etc.
Love them all and I think Tia enjoys it as much as I do
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Downsides:
Eventing - expensive
SJ - we're not paticularly good at this part
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Hunter trialing - bad organisation!
Dressage - can be expensive if you consider what you are getting out of your money in comparison to HT or SJ
Sponsored rides - can't complain about money, but they can pee me off with people not knowing what they're doing
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Well I am planning on doing some RC shows done a couple last year but this year I am hoping to do a good season. I do working hunter aswell.
I am hoping to do some dressage aswell for something different. Generally I am doing a bit of everything with ben which he is more than capable of doing.

I may try some one day events next year but we will see.
Erm the down side to most things is that it costs money lol.
 
I mainly do BE and BSJA, although do the odd unaffiliated SJ, dressage and showing (M&M ridden & WH).

I love BE most of all because I like the XC and SJ, sadly I hate the dressage though! Usually BE events are well organised. However, it IS very expensive and often the events are too far away from me and there aren't enough of them.

I like BSJA because it's on all year round and mostly through the winter which is useful to keep them going. Also I have 3 venues nearish me who run them regularily
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And you get to win money which is always nice
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Its also very well run most of the time.

I dont like unaffiliated SJ or ODE's anymore. Im not a snob but TBH I HATE the horrific organisation at most of them. Far too much waiting about and generally badly designed courses etc. And for SJ, I feel why bother paying £8 a class to have no chance of any prize money (unlike BSJA) at the end of it! I generally just do unaffiliated to get practice or simply get my horses out if there's nothing else on. I do do RC Team stuff though.

My main problem generally with our events up here in NE Scotland is we dont have nearly as many opportunities as you do in England. We DON'T have nearly as many decent qualifiers, or if we do there's no point doing them because all the Finals are ALWAYS down south (10 hour drive for us to do the RC Champs in Warwickshire last year...). And we miss out on other competitions like Team Chasing etc. and other disiplines like Le Trec or Jump Cross venues are VERY few and far between. That's my main gripe
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I BSJA my mare, we dont do anything else (competeing wise) other than SJ.

Like the others have said the down side to it is often having to wait around and never know what time you will jump, what time your class might start and so on...as it is totally dependant on how many are in the class. Also, with the cost of your yearly registration and the price of classes, it can be quite expensive.

On the up side there is alot to love about BSJA! I love the fact that the courses are well planned on good surfaces and indoors in winter! There are different classes so you can work up the ladder, and the money is often good. Organisation is usually pretty good too and there are a variety of things to aim for like second rounds and festivals.
 
I haven't done a lot of competing over the last year as my horse has been injured but he's back in work so I'm hoping to get out and about again soon.
I love anything that involves jumping - hunter trials are my favourite but I also like show jumping. I hate dressage but will probably do some in the new year just to get my horse out as we won't start jumping again for a while yet.
We do unaffiliated stuff but are lucky as there are quite a few decent venues near us.
 
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