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Posts Tagged ‘cross country’

Simple Cross Country Training

May 7th, 2011

cross country horse
If you are planning to go cross country, but don’t have access to a course, bear in mind that you don’t actually need to go to a proper course, you can practice at home out hacking.

You can practice cross country schooling over logs, rather than avoiding the logs as you usually would, step over them and count going round them as refusals and run outs.
Water jumps are one of the most important aspects of a cross country course. Most courses have one, some have multiple water jumps. You can practice for water jumps by stepping your horse through puddles, on a suitable surface you can canter through.Going from light to dark should also be practiced as it can be scary for the horses as their eyes take a while to adjust. Going from dark to light can be equally scary, as this scenario can have a temporary blinding effect.

During the duration of a cross country competition you should never gallop flat out. Doing this strains the horses tendons and ligaments and tires him out , while also straining his heart and lungs. For these reasons you should take the course at a strong (but not fast pace) that is both steady and controlled. When you reach a point where there are no jumps, you can make up time by lengthening the pace, or easing into a totally controlled gallop.
For your horse to be fit enough to gallop parts of the course you need to practice. You can canter over fields and through the woods. You must first make sure the ground is safe, it must be soft, but firm. It must not be muddy or slippy, nor hard and dry. The area must be of fairly soft grass or good soil.

Before you compete, you should apply a fairly generous amount of event grease, to ensure that if you horse does hit a jump, he will slip and slide over it.
Once you have finished your round, and again at the end of the day, run your hand down your horse,s legs and check for cuts, scrapes and swellings.

Happy schooling and competing!!!

Good Luck!!!
Eniola Odurinde

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Badminton Horse Trials 2011

April 22nd, 2011

Thursday
Mitsubishi’s badminton horse trials is one of the greatest three day events around. The competition took place from the 21st April 2011 till 25th April.
The first day (Thursday) is the grassroots event, on Friday and Saturday dressage will take place, Easter Sunday will be cross contry and the final will be on on Monday in the form of show jumping.
Badminton is not usually held on Easter weekend but this year organizers ensured that the event was not held at the same time as the American equivalent in Kentucky.

17:39

Marina Kohncke and Calma Schelly have succeeded in overtaking Laura Collet and pushing her to 2nd . Sam Griffiths is sitting in 3rd . Niklas Lindback is T 4th.Andrew Nicholson is currently in fifth and Fox-Pitt and Navigator have navigated their way off the top five.

Tomorrow the show jumping will decide all. Who will win the gruelling challenges of badminton, and go home £60,000 richer?
Last year, in 2010 Paul Tapner took the lead and after the show jumping it was established that he was the winner, with Inonnothing. This year, he’s back with kilfinnie II because last year he was on the Australian WEG team and Inonothing was injured during the cross country phase. He had a chipped patella, but is expected to recover fully.

This year, between 80 and 100 competitors are riding, but some horses will be withdrawn if they suffer an injury, or turn out stiff during the trot – up, and there will be some falls during the cross country so by the end of it the numbers will have dwindled.

FRIDAY/SATURDAY
These two days are dressage. The arena is 20 x 60 metres and riders must perform a seven and a half minute long test. The percentage is good marks and the penalty points are bad marks. Penalty points are awarded for movements that are not performed, or performed insufficiently. Each movement is given marks out of 10.
0. not performed
1. very bad
2. bad
3. fairly bad
4. insufficient
5. sufficient
6. satisfactory
7. fairly good
8. good
9. very good
10. excellent

The first dressage day is over, some riders still have a test to do, but the riders who went yesterday can only look at the leader board and wish that the were at the top. The delighted laura collet is now leading, on her horse Rayef. Tomorrow Laura collet will be uner extrsa pressure to keep the top spot. If she can thrive, and perform well under this pressure, the win of £60,000 could be hers.

23rd April 2011
Ruth Edge snatches the lead with Two Thyme, Piggy French slots in behind her and pushes the young woman who was so hopeful this morning into 3rd place.

Not all is lost, Collet can still win, if she can beat Edge, French and all other up and coming competitors during the cross country, and keep that lead during the show jumping.

Ruth Edge and her horse have a very good score of 33.3 penalties in their dressage test and are currently carrying the largest chance in the cross country tomorrow..
Pippa Funnel has withdrawn Redesigned and and Oliver Townend originally entered four horses, but only one, Ashdale Cruise Master, is still in the competition.

11:30

The three time badminton winner Pippa Funnel has withdrawn her second horse. She withdrew Mirage D’Elle because she had her doubts about running the less experienced horse after having to withdraw Redesigned due to him not being 100% sound.

About half an hour to go till the start of the cross country!!
13:09 Laura Collet and Rayef are back on top! Andrew Nicholson, who was the first to go has been pushed to 2nd place while William Fox-Pitt and Navigator have not succeeded in navigating to top spot, but are sitting in a fairly promising 3rd.

Monday

07:55
Ruth Edge and Two Thyme, who were in such a promising place at one point have been eliminated after the cross country.

Mark Todd has taken the lead leaving

Marina Kohncke in 2nd

Nicola Wilson is 3rd

Andrew Nicholson is now 4th and

Piggy French lies 5th

16:45

Results 2011

NZB Land Vision has carried Todd to success!!!

Mark Todd is the winner of Mitsubishi’s Badminton horse trials!!!

2nd Piggy french- Jakata

3rd Mary King  – Imperial Cavalier

4th Sam Griffiths -Happy Times

5th Niklas Lindback- Mister Pooh

6th Caroline Powell -Lenamore

7th Nicola Wilson  -Opposition Buzz

8th Laura Collett -Rayef

9th Marina Kohncke -Calma Schelly

10th Andrew Nicholson – Avebury

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Badminton Horse Trials 2010 – Gloucestershire

May 1st, 2010

Badminton Horse Trials
Billed as one of the most exciting and most difficult horse trials in the world, the four star rated Badminton Horse Trials in Badminton, Gloucestershire is not just the oldest of the six horse trials events in the world but one of the most difficult to qualify for and certainly one of the most to take a trophy home from. More than 150 horse and rider from 15 countries entered the event.

The 3-day event sponsored by Mitsubishi motors puts bother horses and riders through their paces in three different events including cross country, dressage and show jumping. The event attracts eventers from allover the world. The 2010 Badminton horse trials expects participants such as two-time Olympic gold medallist and 3 times Badminton winner Mark Todd of New Zealand and his compatriot Andrew Nicholson.

Badminton horse trials starts with dressage, followed by cross country and concluded with showjumping.

You can find more information about the event at Badminton Horse Trials homepage.

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Top Rural and Countryside Blogs

April 30th, 2010

We are in the age of new media, rural and countryside dwellers have been using the new media just as much as the townies (Broadband availability permitting). There are quite a few fantastic rural blogs out there that give you information about countryside in general or a particular aspect of the countryside from buying, selling a horse, generating revenue for your small holding to rural lifestyles. We bring you some of the leading rural blogs out there, we hope you find them informative.

Farming Related Blogs

  • DEFRA Blog –  department for environment food and rural affairs needs no introduction if you are a farmer or lives in a rural area. Their blog can be informative, though when this was being written they were talking about the General Election.

Horse Related Blogs

Badminton Horse Trials – Sponsored by Mitsubishi Motors, Badminton horse trials in Gloucestershire is one of the most important horse trials on horse lovers calendar. This blog gives you the low down on this annual event, who is hot in what event and so on. Visit this blog to get the low down including information you may not necessarily find on the official Badminton horse trials homepage.

Other Countryside/Rural Blogs

Field Day – A nice humorous blog about countryside issues ranging from food and drink to wildlife conservation.

Add your rural blog to this page FREE

Horse Lovers Dating is compiling the largest and most authoritative listing of rural and countryside blogs in UK, if you write a countryside blog or know of one you feel we should have on this list, please contact us using the contact for found here and we will consider adding your nominated blog to this page.

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