Activities

If you follow us on Facebook, you should hopefully be aware of the adult Riding Club clinic tomorrow night that Lauren’s teaching. It’s going to focus on how to ride a dressage test so great if you’ve never tried or if you want to hone your skills. Give me a call and I can tell you which horses are still available.

On Thursday next week (17th) our monthly adult South Downs hack will be going out from 10.00 – 12.00. It will include canter – more details available here.

Liveries

We’ve got an incredible number of liveries at the minute which is fantastic given how many exclusive livery events we’re running this year. Ellie Wright has finally found a suitable half share in Splash, and Abi Yetton has the biggest smile on her face every time she’s here now that she has a half share in Fraser.

Alex de Brunner has just bought a grey gelding called Knight from Wayside Stables, which is the same place Blackie came from. He’s got all the makings of a fantastic horse for her to have a lot of fun on, so you’re sure to see her at all the Pony Club activities this summer.

Bella Boulton has her heart set on Casper, so he’ll be staying on with us following his trial period. There are now so many similarly-sized grey geldings on the yard that it’s hard to tell which is which!

The very handsome Amorio is looking for a new owner, so make sure you have a look at his details here.

Dogs

Pearl’s puppies are going from strength to strength and have now started to open their eyes. Lucy’s decided to keep the blonde one, and has already decided on homes for the remaining six. Not sure if the clients she has in mind are all aware they’re getting puppies though!

Staff

Lauren & Amelia passed their BHS Stage 3 Riding exams with flying colours which is fantastic. Steph & Holly P recently took their BHS Stage 2 exams and now ambush the postman every day waiting for their results. Fingers crossed!

Finally

We had a lovely email from a lady called Karen who purchased a pony called Bud from us nearly a year ago. She told us he’s shaping up to be a fantastic all-rounder with a real love for jumping, and “has brought Millie’s riding on hugely and done her confidence a huge amount of good.” We’re always delighted to hear how any of our ponies are getting on, so it’s great that Bud has been such a success for Millie.

Horses

Moving onto more horse related matters…

Both Bluebell’s  and Amorio’s details have also been updated to reflect the fact that they are available to be sold off site to private homes – click here for further information.

Last week we mentioned the strapping chestnut gelding that’s coming over from Ireland. Weather permitting; he should be here within a week, as will Chester – another nice gelding who’s far more local though.

Amanda and Amelia took Pepper and Quinn to West Wittering beach yesterday morning for a good gallop to blow the cobwebs away. Both horses were apparently very well behaved and after being initially unsure of the moving water against their legs had a brilliant time.

Liveries

The Yeomans have recently bought Cherry who will be staying here on elite livery. A confident mare who knows her job and how to teach it, we’re sure that Georgina will learn lots from her and continue to progress.

Our quarterly livery meeting has been postponed from Saturday 28th April to Saturday 19th May at 12pm in the Club Room. Please spread the word and start thinking about anything you’d particularly like to bring up next month.

Our exclusive child livery hacks continue to run fortnightly, with the next hack scheduled for Saturday 5th May at 12pm. If you’d like to book a slot then do give me a call, and don’t forget that we ask the children to prepare their horses/ponies themselves.

News

Thanks to the hard work of Sue Bird from www.jsbeephotography.com, we’re in Local Rider magazine for the second month in a row. Make sure you pick up a copy soon to read the report from the Pony Club Combined Training Competition that we held on 5th April (p. 66), and also have a look at the lovely photo of our girls at the Pony Club National Quiz (p. 50).

Staff

Holly Player is entered for her BHS Stage 2 exam on Monday next week, so please keep your fingers crossed for her. We’re still eagerly awaiting the results of Lauren and Amelia’s Stage 3 riding… good things come to those who wait (we hope)!
Jade and Lauren spent two days this week at their annual first aid training course. Lauren took this brilliant photo of Jade modelling the latest fashion in bandaging!

Facilities

Lucy’s spent most of the week researching cross country jumps and could probably tell you all the health and safety measures necessary for them in her sleep! We’ve ordered some red and white flags to go on the jumps in the woods, and we’re working on clearing away the last of the debris before we test out the course and open it up to clients.

Activities

Last Thursday we ran a mini dressage competition as the first of our new adult competition mornings. Despite the rain, everyone had a good time and learnt a lot from Lucy’s judging. Results are online here, with photography services supplied by Joe Bird from www.jsbeephotography.com. If you’re ever thinking about having a go at dressage or jumping then these monthly competitions are ideal – there’s nothing scary and we’ll help you out with everything.

We’ve got plenty on next month for both adult and child riders alike, so make sure you take a look at the events page on the website to make sure you don’t miss anything. Please note that we will be open on Monday 7th May – we know it’s a bank holiday but the horses don’t care!

The Easter holidays are over for the state school children, and they’ve certainly been busy! Last week was the Easter Camp which was a big success as per normal despite the rain, hail and occasional thunder. We saw some brilliant Easter bonnets and some competitive riders in the competition! Results from the Camp’s Pony Club Rally and final competition are online at www.lhstables.co.uk/adults/results. The children were fantastic team players and really supported each other through every challenge – here are Alex, Molly and Phoebe cheering on Livvy & Limmy in their bucket elimination round:

Liveries

Many of you will be pleased to know that we’re going to run the two hour child livery hacks every other week from now on. The children that managed to secure spaces immediately wanted to go again, so in order to give the others a go we’ve increased the frequency. The next livery meeting is scheduled for 28th April – that’s Saturday next week – so put it in your diary and bring along all your ideas.

Horses

Lucy’s sourced a strapping chestnut horse from Ireland to accommodate our growing adult male client base that will hopefully be arriving later on this week for trial. 6 year old grey Rufus arrived last week and is having a few days off to acclimatise and make the most of the spring grass, but you’ll see him being ridden soon enough. Georgina Yeomans has had 14 year old grey mare Cherry on trial for a couple of weeks now, who is being vetted later on in the week, as is Casper who Bella Boulton has snapped up. We’ve got so many girls that are moving onto lovely little horses / bigger ponies like this at the minute, so expect to see plenty of new faces around over the next few weeks.

Amanda Kruger has been providing brilliant staff training for a few months now, and recently decided to bring her own horse, Oliver, here. You can spot him in his rather eye-catching red rug with Lucy’s horses next to the car park. At 18 years old he certainly knows his job, but he’s the apple of Amanda’s eye and she knows he’s well looked after under Jade’s command!

Staff

On Monday Lauren and Amelia got up in the middle of the night to head off down to Dorset to take their BHS Stage 3 riding exams – we heard positive reports on their return so we’ll be keeping our fingers firmly crossed until the results arrive in the post.

Facilities

Yet more meetings this week for the indoor school… it really is happening, we promise! We’re now looking at different dimensions to make it more economically viable to construct (as in a more “off the shelf” steel framed building – which believe it or not really does exist!) and also investigating the use of local construction companies to carry out the work as we are always keen to keep money in the local economy wherever we can.

Competitions

Hayley and Robbie and Nathalie and Squiggles went to an unaffiliated show jumping competition at Pyecombe on Saturday and did really well. They entered three classes each and were placed in one apiece, although we gather that Hayley was only seconds from being placed in another. They’ve qualified for Cricklands Summer Junior Show Jumping Championships which will be held in Wales… roadtrip!

On the Sunday Amelia & Pepper headed off to Tweseldown Racecourse, Church Crookham, to compete in their first One Day Event of this year, moving up a grade and also improving upon their performances of last year, but with some definite work to be done on Pepper’s brakes.

Finally

Pearl is keeping us all on our toes.  In pup to Calvin, she is due any day now and keeps confounding us with signs of impending birth and then changing her mind again.  Meanwhile she just keeps on getting bigger and bigger…

After all the weeks of preparation, which included mid-week as well as weekend training sessions, Saturday 31st March finally arrived and we were on our way to Warwick for the final of the Pony Club National Quiz.  We returned to The Hilton Hotel, Warwick, for our overnight stay and as the Team members (Phoebe Goodale, Livvy Linares, Emily Pattison and Helena Bissex) and their entourages arrived we gathered in the lounge.  During the afternoon the Team had a revision session, led by Laura Pattison and Catherine Bissex – to give the Mums a break, and we celebrated Livvy’s birthday with birthday cake, including candles, and singing “Happy Birthday”!  The men then headed off into Warwick for a drink before we all met up in ASK and our table for 13 for a memorable meal, lots of chatting, photographs and laughter.

Breakfast the next morning was a more subdued event than last year with no one attempting to eat their way through the entire menu, though some of us couldn’t resist the temptations of the splendid breakfast buffet and made several return trips.  The Team met up outside the hotel for a quick photo shoot before heading off to the Quiz.

As last year there were 19 Branch Teams and 10 Centre Teams in the Final.  The first four rounds of the Quiz on The Pony Club, Map Reading, Know Your Horse and Rider Tack &Turnout, were completed at a brisk pace and, although there were some surprises, the Team felt that the morning session had gone well.  The afternoon started with the dreaded Individual Practical Round, but having done a lot of preparation for this (many thanks to Lauren and Jade for all their help, we will be looking to you for support with this again next year) it went much better this year.  The last three rounds, Foot, Shoeing & Ailments, Equestrian Olympics & Paralympics and Picture Round, sped by and then there was, what seemed like, an eternity to wait for the results.  The Team coped much better than their supporters with this pause in the proceedings, the Mums were looking quite ill by the time all was revealed.

The results for the Centre Teams were announced first and as they went through the Teams from 10th upwards there was a growing sense of excitement as we realised that we had passed our 6th place of last year and had made it into the top three.  The Team put in a brilliant performance to come 3rd with a score of 226 points, 36 points clear of the team in 4th place and not far behind the second and first placed teams, who incidentally also finished first and second last year.  From the reaction of the Team it looks like we will be entering the competition again next year.  Special thanks must go to Diane Goodale, Team Manager, and the other Mums for all their hard work and enthusiasm.

By Catherine Bissex and Laura Pattison

Well the Easter holidays are now in full swing, and we’re started things off with a typically-popular Pony Owning Morning on Monday and a Pony Club E & D Test exam. The following girls are now the proud holders of their new felts and certificates:

Anna Douglas – E Test and Riding & Road Safety mini badge
Lily Bradley – D Test and Riding & Road Safety mini badge
Lucy Gee – D Test and Riding & Road Safety mini badge
Elspeth Goodman – D Test and Riding & Road Safety mini badge
Tilly Goodman – D Test and Riding & Road Safety mini badge
Ellen Douglas – Silver Progressive Test 1
Layla Smith – Silver Progressive Test 1 and Riding & Road Safety mini badge

On Tuesday, Lucy brought in Rio Barrett from Oakwood Natural Horsemanship to run a workshop in the morning for our Pony Club members. This was incredibly popular, so much so that Rio screamed down the phone when I told her there were 22 children (and uncounted parents) signed up! However her fears of inundation were groundless and I’ve had everyone clamouring for another demonstration – so perhaps you might like to note Rio is back with our Pony Club on the 2nd August and 1st November, plus for the adults at our Riding Club evening on 8th June.

Next week is our Easter Camp, for which there are some spaces available. The Camp is designed to be progressive so the more days the children can do the better, but I do have some individual days left – give me a call to see which horses/ponies are free.

Pony Club

Congratulations to our Pony Club team Lavant Lasses who came third in the Pony Club Quiz last weekend – I’m assured they’re writing a full report to follow shortly.

Liveries

With half of our paddocks in the process of being harrowed, rolled or fertilised to make sure we have enough grass to feed our growing herds, Jade is using all her resourcefulness to accommodate the new horses arriving this week. Georgina Yeomans has the grey mare Cherry here on trial, and Casper was dropped off on Wednesday to stay for a fortnight for Bella Boulton to try out. If this afternoon’s reactions are anything to go by, they’re both going to be rather popular!

After trying many different horses and ponies, Molly Brooks has finally found one that’s just right – she’s taking Hugh on the full Pony Pals scheme which is fantastic. Hopefully she won’t grow out of him anytime soon!

Adults

Looking beyond the Easter holidays (no they’re not indefinite!) Lauren’s running a dressage competition for adults on Thursday 19th April in the morning. Please do come along and give it a go as it’ll be a fantastic experience and good fun too. You never know, you might develop a taste for it and we’ll have a yard full of dressage divas!

Last week saw the first of our highly-anticipated adult clinics of the year. Lauren planned the three days to include elements from the BHS Stage 1 syllabus, which focused on flatwork and culminated in a small cross pole at the end. Videos from the last day are available online here. The next clinic will be at the end of May, and will focus more on BHS Stage 2.

Staff

Lauren and Amelia are taking their BHS Stage 3 exams on Monday next week, which include cross country in the riding section as well as horse care and knowledge. Fingers crossed…

Facility Developments

We brought you photos of the cross country jumps last week, and now I’ve got a couple of badly-filmed clips of Lauren and Jade riding through for you to see here. Amelia’s been roping in her friends to build some more jumps in the grounds too:

Finally

Much to Lucy’s delight (and nobody’s surprise) Pearl is officially pregnant, thanks to Calvin. The scan at the vet on Tuesday revealed she’s carrying six puppies – although she’s looking rather large at the minute, you wouldn’t think there’d be room in there for that many puppies! Two of them have already been spoken for and we’re pretty sure there won’t be a shortage of homes. They’ll be the best looked after puppies in Sussex!

Easter Activities

Details of these have been up on the website for a little while, and do pick up one of the leaflets from the Stables next time you’re here as there’s a £15 discount voucher inside to use against any adult or child activity in April.

We’ve got the usual Pony Club rallies and tests, and this Easter’s Pony Club competition will be on Thursday 5th April. We’re also trying out our new Club Days during the private school holidays – these can be either a whole or half day, and it’s entirely up to you whether you’d like them to be Pony Club rallies, activity days, Pony Owning, etc.

Liveries

We know how popular the child livery hack last month was, and April’s was fully booked within a couple of weeks of the diary coming out! Lauren also ran a livery clear round competition during supo on Friday 16th March which seemed to go down well, so she’s handing the reins over to Alison to take charge of this from now. The next date is Friday 20th April – no need to pre-book unless it’s not your normal livery day.

Adults

Lavant House Stables is officially a Riding Club Centre once again, and will be ably handled by Lauren. If you’ve no idea what this means to you, think of it as a Pony Club for grown-ups but without the badges! At only £10 per annum, it’s well worth joining just to have a go at either the evening gridwork on the 13th or the morning dressage competition on the 19th next month. There’s nothing scary, just a relaxed environment to try something new.

Facility Developments

Some of you may have seen the photos of the cross country jumps I put on our Facebook page last week (and if you’re on Facebook and you haven’t, why aren’t you following us?!). We’ve had a couple of brilliant guys in clearing the woods and then using the material to build some fantastic jumps for us. Feel free to go and have a wander up there next time you’re here – it’ll be suitable for the Erics and Squeaks as well as the horses too! You won’t be able to miss the bluebells either which are out a month early… fingers crossed they survive the colder snap forecast next week.

We could also really do with a hand clearing the cross country course of left over debris and particularly getting as many of the flint stones out as possible, so if you can help at all please let us know. The sooner the course is cleared, the sooner we can open it up to everyone!

Speaking of cross country…

Jade took Phoebe McCall on Rory and Holly Player on Dave to Coombelands last week for cross country schooling. By all accounts they were beautifully behaved and had a brilliant time, especially since it was Dave’s first outing since he came here in January 2011.

Amanda also took Amelia up to Munstead with Pepper and Quinn on Wednesday for a schooling session ahead of the Surrey Union Hunter Trial there on Sunday that both horses are entered for. Lucy’s determined to practise loading with Quinn, since there’s nothing worse than being ready to go and being unable to load your horse on the morning of a competition. Unfortunately, Pepper (who’s as good as gold at loading) has been dragged in to babysit Quinn on the lorry in these practise sessions, talk about patience!

Horses

We’re on the lookout for several horses for various clients at the minute, all fitting pretty much the same description. As such, we’ve currently got a beautiful black mare called Dancer here on trial and are expecting two more next week, so watch this space…
On Sunday, Amanda Kruger will be bringing her 18 year old eventer, Oliver, to stay with us here. It seemed such a sensible move since Amanda’s here so much supporting the staff through their BHS qualifications and training Amelia with Pepper and Quinn.

Finally…

We’re delighted to be in Local Rider magazine, courtesy of Sue Bird from JSBee Photography. The current issue is in local shops now, so pick one up to see coverage of our Pony Club dressage competition in the February half term.

I’m also expecting what we hope will be final draft of the annual planner back from our marketing team tomorrow, so as soon as Lucy’s signed it off I’ll get the details for this year up on the Events page on our website.

Holly

So where are we at at the moment?

Better late than never I suppose …

First of all the Easter Activity programme is now available in a temporary format so it is now possible to book activities, whilst the annual planner for every event this year remains under construction – delayed again all thanks to yours truly *sigh*.

Working their way to the top of the pile of papers on my desk are the specifications for the indoor school which I absolutely have to do something about before the deadline on the planning expires – story of my life this is – everything gets done at the 11th hour!  Well looking on the bright side – at least I actually do manage to do it, if a little late.

Staff going-ons …

A big welcome back to Alice Taws, who we missed badly as she has ridden with us since year dot – June 2000 to be exact, along with the rest of her family.  However Alice endured and rode with us every week until becoming one of our highly valued Weekend Assistants, again in June, but this time 2008.  Alice had her final lesson with us in September 2010 – so this means she had been coming to us at least once a week for 533 consecutive weeks – remarkable huh?  Even more remarkably is Alice is not the only one we can say this about.  Such is the attraction of horses.  Any way, to get to the point, Alice went off and did her own thing and now she is back with us as a full-time member of yard staff and hopefully now this is it, she is here to stay.  Welcome back Alice!

Talking of staff, Steph passed her Riding and Road Safety Exam last week with only a very basic brushing up from Lauren, achieving a 100% pass rate and today (20th March) Becky starts the stream of British Horse Society exams coming up for all the yard staff by taking her BHS Stage 2 exam complete at Wellington Riding, Basingstoke.  Fingers crossed for you Becky.

Horsey happenings to finish …

Moving on to our all important horses: earlier this month we welcomed Nathalie Hyman’s new horse Squiggles, who travelled down all the way from Scotland.  A handsome Anglo Arab, he is Nathalie’s first proper horse and with his successful competition background they are destined to have a lot of fun ahead.  There has also been lots of movement on the loan front with Lizzie Douglas’s two girls, Anna and Ellen, taking half shares in Joey and Munchkin respectively.  Miranda has given up her half-share in Willow because she just can’t cope with her school commitments so I am sure there is someone out there who would be interested in this, and in a month we welcome Eve Jolly who is taking a half-share in Tyler.  This is particularly wonderful because Eve has been longing for a horse for the last year or two.  She wore us down about it so I doubt her parents really ever stood a chance!  Lovely to have you here Eve at long last.  We also welcome back Layla Smith who has moved on from Todd and now taken the other half-share in Sailor with Francesca Kynan-Holmes.

Now Spring is here horse outings are hotting up and so far this month Pepper and Quinn have been to Royal Leisure with Amanda and Amelia respectively to compete in their first dressage classes and Pepper surprised us all by coming 5th in both his classes – he would in fact have won one of them if he hadn’t decided to take himself out to the arena.  Not something we had ever envisaged as Pepper finds dressage tedious to say the least; he must be growing up!  I am sending Salt off to my mate Alec Miles to work with whilst Amelia falls into the thick of her final A Levels as she just can’t cope with riding three and for the first time ever I suppose I am going to become a proper Event Horse Owner – a novelty for me and something I guess I have always fancied since giving up the sport myself.

Finally, last Saturday Bally with Lauren and Quinn with Amelia met the hunt at Goodwood and had the ride of their lives – they came back absolutely full of it and never mind the dreary weather that day.  Also out hunting with them were our clients Mark Pennycook and Geoff Lane, both riding handsome hirelings and hopefully I will have some photos of them too to add to to this blog shortly.

Moving off

Lauren and Bally

Bally arrives at the Ball!

Quinn & Amelia

Lots of horsey happenings ……
Pony Squirrel has definitely landed on all four hooves by finding himself a permanent new home with the Armstrong family who we wish all the best with him.   From next month Sailor will have two owners to fuss over him with Layla Smith joining Francesca Kynan as shared loan owners.  We have welcomed this week the arrival of the handsome Squiggles from Scotland who is the new horse for Nathalie Hyman – and no, we didn’t go up there to check him out for her!  And finally on the horsey movement changes the fabulous schoolmaster pony Lir is coming up for sale – which I am sure will interest some of you as this pony is hugely popular – a condition of sale is he will need to remain with us by the way.

How do you like this photo of Pepper with his new type of footwear?  We are doing what is known as “tubbing” which is soaking his feet in warm salt water to help clear up an infection in the bulbs of his heels.  What is unusual in this picture is the horse is standing there quite happily, munching his haynet, we both front feet in buckets of water, not many horses would tolerate this, but this is Pepper for you.  I am not quite sure what my daughter does to her horses but they all end up with rather unusual personalities - Eddie being another classic example!

Outings …….
Last weekend I had to drag information out of the reticent Ella (Guimaraens) who had the previous day taken her first trip out with her new horse Dique to a “mysterious” location in Wiltshire.   After a series of questions I learned that Ella and Dique had jumped one of the few clear rounds on behalf of her school team (Ditcham Park) and it was 2’9″ course indoors – so would have been pretty meaty.  We were all incredibly impressed and no-one would have been the wiser unless we asked. We would probably also have been appalled if we had known prior what they were aiming for at their first competition, but in hindsight it was obviously better we didn’t know!  A really big well done Ella and Dique – we are proud of you.

Having started on mentioning February 25th I am also going to finish with this date too as a bunch of us are off hunting to meet the Chiddingfold and Leconfield at Uppark House, so if you would like to come and join us at 11 a.m. for the half hour or so before everyone moves off  we would love to see you.  We have Evelyn on Eddie, Becky on Sailor (he is getting a lot of mentions in this bit of blurb!) and Amelia on Quinn - and not one of them is allowed to fall off!

Have a great weekend and speak soon.

Helena Bissex
Livvy Linares
Emily Pattison
Phoebe Goodale

Our second team managed a respectable third which was an outstanding result as they were unexpectedly one man down.

Laura Pattison
Daniel Winnett
Hayley Horsman

A serious well done to one and all, including the dedicated team managers – Jane Bissex and Diane Goodale. 

The Winnint Team - Livvy, Helena, Emily & Phoebe

The Team Mascot!Third Placed Team of Daniel, Laura and Hayley

Third Placed Team of Daniel, Laura and Hayley