Changes have just been announced for Equagility in 2017.  Until now, Equagility has only featured competitively in the Summer of Sport and as an occasional Fun bonus course.  From January 1st, 2017, a worldwide Equagility league is being introduced.  This is very exciting! :-)

The choices are many and varied, with 7 levels to have a go at, each level named after a colour of the rainbow!  The combinations are, in summary: walking with two reins; walking with one rein; walk and trot with two reins; walk and trot with one rein; walk, trot and canter with two reins; walk, trot and canter with one rein; and, finally, the elite walk, trot and canter bridleless (no reins).  

For more detail about each level, see the Horse Agility Club website.

Hugely delighted to see that saddles are being allowed in Equagility for the Summer of Sport! :-D  

I have been campaigning for this change for some time (it is normally bareback).

I know that some people feel that riding bareback is not necessarily good for the horse's back and that a well made and well fitting saddle is kinder on the horse's back.  I haven't seen the scientific evidence one way or the other (I'm not saying there isn't any, just that I haven't investigated in any great detail) but I do believe that someone's choice to use a saddle should be respected.  For me, Equagility has always been about bitless/ bridle less riding, not about bareback riding.  By all means, go bareback for fun if you are confident enough and can balance, but I have always felt that this excludes alot of people who can't or don't want to ride bareback.  The point of Equagility has always been to ride from voice, seat, weight and breath aids and not the horse's mouth.  To this end, I would much rather see someone achieve light, stable and balanced riding from the seat, rather than unbalanced, tight and insecure riding bareback.  Lastly, there is rider confidence.  I work with a number of less confident riders and the thought of going bareback is closer to their panic zone than their comfort zone.  This excludes quite alot of people who would love to have a go and who could have fun and benefit from having a go at ridden obstacles.  Allowing a saddle makes Equagility more inclusive and more accessible for more riders and I'm delighted to see this change in the Summer of Sport :-) 

The Summer of Sport is back again, yay!!!! :-D  And bigger and better than ever!!!  Delighted to see that it's running over two months again (July and August) and the Team element is back :-D  If you like the sound of Wild Agility, Dressage and Jumping (all in hand or at liberty!) then there's also a new Eventer's Challenge Rosette to compete for!  With TWENTY (!) courses to chose from this year, there's bound to be something for everyone :-)  

The Horse Agility Club courses have just come out for February and there's very exciting news for anyone who is in the Southern Hemisphere, or indeed those in the Northern Hemisphere looking for Winter Fun!!!

The club has launched a Southern Summer of Sport, which will run through February and March.  The original Summer of Sport has a Northern bias, as it runs through July and August, obviously that's Winter for our friends in the South!  Hurrah for Equal Opportunities (and more fun for everyone :-D  

The Southern Summer of Sport classes are:

• Long Reining
• Pairs
• Showjumping
• Wild Agility
• Junior

Very excited to confirm that we'll be back at the Hurst Show and Country Fayre this year!  We'll be doing our display on Saturday 25th June, exact times to be confirmed but expected to be similar to last year.

We had great fun last year and the Hurst Show itself is a great day out for all the family, lots to see and do and raising lots of money for local charities.  Put the date in your diary!

Here are some of the photos from last year's display :-)

The Horse Agility Club has just announced 3 new Open classes in the video competitions for 2016.  These are:

1. online
2. liberty
3. equagility

Online and Liberty will comprise 2 obstacles at each of the 5 levels, starter through Advanced one star.  The classes will have placings and rosettes, but will not count towards any of the leagues.  These classes are perfect if you'd like to have a go at different levels of obstacles, either to try some obstacles at a higher level, for fun, or to have some obstacles at a lower level, perhaps to fill in some gaps in training, or just to have more fun and less pressure.    

The new course from the International Horse Agility Club is out for September :-D  There will be some challenges for us to work on:

Obstacle number 1: "the horse to FOLLOW the handler through the weave at trot".  Much of horse agility in the past has been about maintaining a leading position with the horse beside the handler and Fat Pony has grown very comfortable with this arrangement.  So much so, that we have struggled with Trec competitions, where the pony is supposed to lead through certain obstacles behind the handler.  Well, not so much struggled, but lack of understanding from Fat Pony as to the task and staying behind doesn't compute with his own preference to be beside (by contrast, Dominant Mare, ironically, much prefers to follow behind and will eventually have to learn to be confident leading beside!  Ponies, eh! :-)   

Obstacle number 3: "Circle Target. Using a circle of diameter not more than 12 inches (30cm) placed on the ground—a plastic bucket lid will do or a circle of coloured cardboard. Halt your horse from trot with his left hind foot on the circle. Count to three and walk on".  This is a completely new obstacle for us.  At the starter level this obstacle would be halt from walk with the left front foot on the target and you would build it up from there.  So we have to tackle this one at Advanced 1* level, from scratch.  This will probably need the most training for this month!  30cm is not a very big target at all!

Obstacle numbers 4 and 5:  the solid box is back.  At Advanced 1* level I have to send Fat Pony into the box and then reverse him out again whilst keeping my own feet still.  The last time we attempted this wasn't too bad, I predict that the biggest training challenge will be that Fat Pony needs a little time to get used to and be confident with, the enclosed nature of the box.  This will definitely be one where it will be wise to lock the other ponies well out of the way to prevent them trying to interfere and causing very submissive Fat Pony to feel potentially "trapped".  The biggest challenge with this obstacle won't be so much a training challenge, as the challenge of building the box itself.  The dimensions are very specific and the box must have solid sides, any gaps or chinks of light will loose points!  The last time I used crash barriers, but their height didn't meet specification (too low).  It's actually quite challenging creating solid sides 1m high when you don't have an arena fence (no arena, lol!), your paddocks are all electric tape (not strong enough to support a tarp or sheet) and you don't even own jump wings!  Time to get the DIY head on!

Obstacle number 6:  the horse to canter through the scary corner.  I'm still working on teaching Fat Pony his canter transitions in general, his understanding of the task and putting it "on cue" is something we still have to work on and also his confidence needs alot of work, at the moment he is being over sensitive, leading to resistance and rushing and then he either stops listening and/ or simply dis-engages and leaves the conversation.  For the sake of where we are in our training and my relationship with Fat Pony, I might decide to do this one in trot and simply sacrifice the 2 points deduction for not being in canter.  

Obstacle number 7:  is the horse to back through the pole corridor, but without passing through forwards first.  We can do that, but it's been a while and never through the poles, always a more upright obstacle (curtain, narrow gap).  Fat Pony will have a problem seeing the poles behind him, so that will need some practice and it will be sensible to go back a few steps to remind Fat Pony of what the obstacle is and give him confidence.

Obstacle number 8: is for the horse to trot over the tarp, but again BEHIND the handler!

Obstacles 9 and 10: are to do with picking up, carrying and putting down a bucket - without the horse showing any interest in the bucket.  Could be quite ok, but Fat Pony is very food oriented...  I'll have to test that one early to see whether it will need work or not.

Lots of challenges!  And lots of fun to work on :-)

Well what a fantastic day we all had yesterday :-D  The Berkshire Horse Agility Competition Day was a resounding success, with entries in 6 classes:  Starter, Liberty, Open, Long Reining, Pairs and Equagility!  The venue was fabulous, the weather was lovely and lots of happy, smiling faces on both humans and horses :-)  Congratulations to all who took part, everyone was a winner :-)

Well, what a great day at yesterday's first Versatile Trec Horse competition, run by Berkshire Horse Agility on behalf of a local Riding Club.  Versatile Trec is a great way to start out with Trec, as it replaces the orienteering phase with an Obedience Test.  Yesterday's competition was run across 3 arenas, with the 3 phases being: 1. Control of Paces (slow canter followed by a fast walk); 2. Obedience Test (stressage without the stress! - judged on the accuracy of completing a number of movements but not the "way of going"); 3. Obstacles (10 rustic obstacles to simulate situations that you might meet out hacking).

There were classes for everybody: In Hand; Novice Walk & Trot; Novice (WTC); Intermediate and Open; with rosettes to 6th place plus Best Junior and Best Riding Club member in each class. 

Although the skies were grey, the rain held off (well, until everyone had gone and I had to pack up the lorry, then the heavens opened!) and there were lots of sunny, smiling faces :-)

A huge thank you to the helpers, without whom the competition could not have run, and Well Done to everyone who took part, you were all winners :-)

Yay!!!  Feeling very excited! :-D  It's time for the International Horse Agility Club's (IHAC) annual Summer of Sport :-D  The Summer of Sport first came about in 2012, inspired by the Olympic Games coming to London and comprises a number of Fun Agility classes, in addition to the usual monthly Online and Liberty League classes.  I'm very excited that Equagility is back and even more excited that a Wild Agility class has been introduced (yay!!!! :-D  If those don't appeal to you, then there's a special Junior's class; if you're sad to be too old for Juniors then there's the adult version "act your shoe size" ;-) or you could try the long reining or pairs classes.  For the more athletic equines, there's jumping or dressage.  And there's also a team element being introduced this year, in true IHAC style you can hook up with members from all around the world to form your team, you don't have to be in the same country, or at the same level, just enter the same 4 classes to be awarded a cumulative score. 

This year, the Summer of Sport has been extended from one month to two months, so more time to have fun, play with the courses and film entries :-D  So a long Summer of Sport, definitely yes.  And hot?  Well there's never any knowing what the summer weather will bring us, in the UK anyway, but the courses are definitely "hot" :-)  Lots of variety and fun ideas to choose from :-)