Far South Coast Dressage Association December 2014 Newsbook! Email: [email protected] Website
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Far South Coast Dressage Association December 2014 Newsbook! Email: [email protected] Website: www.fscda.com.au FSCDA 2014 Committee What a fabulous weekend it was for the FSCDA annual Championships held for the first President time at Cobargo Showground on the 29th - 30th November. The event received record Tanya Rutter entries with riders travelling from as far afield as Moruya, Cooma and Mallacoota together Ph: (02) 6494 7265 [email protected] with a large contingent of local riders. Vice President Last year the club broke through the 100 entries barrier for first time for our Championship Paul Phelan event and this included our Prix Caprilli and Dressage Trail Classes (17 plus the 85 dressage Ph: (02) 6493 6223 [email protected] entries). 2014 we again had 102 entries but this time all entries are for our traditional Dressage classes only. Junior Vice President Jess Coleman Ph: 0400 043 889 The club was fortunate to secure the [email protected] services of two highly accredited judges, Leslie Gillis and Liz Pugh, who made the Secretary Trish Hayes journey down from Canberra to officiate Ph: (02) 6492 1459 over the two days of competition. Thank you [email protected] also to Hetty Munda who stepped in at the Treasurer last minute to cover Leslie's arena after her Anne-Marie Moxey Ph: (02) 6492 3041 very unfortunate accident. I know you all [email protected] join me in wishing Leslie a speedy recovery and we hope her experience will not deter Publicity Officer vacant her from coming back to judge for us again in the future. Event Secretary Saturday saw the running of the Preliminary Championship and the Musical Rides including Anne-Marie Moxey Freestyles, Pas de Deux and Pas de Trois. There were some great themes and costumes on Assistant: Sue Hergenhan the day. I thought I would take the time (and space) to share as many of their Judge Co-ordinator introductions with you as I can so you can all appreciate the effort that went into their Pip Collins performances. Assistant: Wendy Croese Our trio, who are newcomers to Freestyle, put a lot of thought into their routine. Committee Members Lucie Phelan, Jenny "Angela Keith, Els Paijmans and Corinne Markov are going to perform the following Pas de Pheeney, Jo Oastler & Trois with their 3 mares - Possum, Bella and Shemesh. They were a little concerned about Rebecca Breust. how the mares would behave together - and felt that the "Night Mares" was a good name for them! This lead Angela to think of a piece of music by Wagner called "Ride of the Public Officer Sandra Kain Valkyries" . The Ride of the Valkyries in Norse mythology, tells the Arena Set-up story of one of the twelve handmaids of Odin who ride Paul & Lucie Phelan their horses over the field of battle and escort the souls of slain heroes to Valhalla. Website Managers Kim Gardner & Angela The women's version today is a little different , but does Keith involve the story of a small boy called Jeff, who falls asleep and has a nightmare that he is taken off by the Catering Committee Valkyries - the wild winged women - but he is woken up Les Hayes, Liz Pincini, Rebecca Breust & Darrel by the Wiggles and is happy to realise it was all a bad dream. Moxey Perhaps this is a wish by all women - that wars are just a bad dream." It was a great routine with the girls scoring the highest percentage on the day. Not bad for a first effort! Can't wait to see next year's routine. Corrine also rode an individual Freestyle. Corinne Markov got her first horse when she was 40, although has loved horses and has ridden all her life. This mare, Shemesh (meaning sun in Hebrew) , is 9 years old - a thoroughbred x stockhorse by Mick Otton's Wiljohn Crab from Lady Moran of Bemboka and bred by Corinne. Shemesh has been a very difficult mare and it is fantastic to see how she is learning to be a partner after years of trying to bite Corinne every time she put her legs on! We have only been working on this routine a couple of weeks and this song is sung by a beautiful Israeli artist called Noa - it is called "I don't know" - and Corinne says -" the older she gets, the less she feels she knows!" I was interested to learn that Shemesh is by Crab as so is Tamaru Sunshine (Sunny) also from a thoroughbred mare. Young Paige Moxey was riding Brampton Halloween, know as Harry Potter, so chose a Halloween theme complete with attached spiders! Paige has been riding Harry Potter for a little over a year now. Harry was only 3 when Paige got him, which was a challenge considering Paige was only 6 at the time. They have had their ups and downs, but have really started to form a great little partnership over the last few months. Paige's sheer determination to beat her sister has been the main motivator, and in order to achieve this Paige and Harry have been working on their canter - mum is hoping "control" will come soon! Paige and Harry are riding a preliminary freestyle themed around Halloween. With a paddock name of Harry Potter and a show name of Brampton Halloween, there really was no other choice. Paige's main interest was the costume, lots of spiders and sparkle. Harry's main interest has always been grass, and considering the size of him at the moment he looks just like a pumpkin, which fits the theme beautifully. Pip has battled for some time to convince her musician husband to help her with a Freestyle routine. "Pip has been attempting to get a freestyle together for about 3yrs. Her other half is a musician...say no more (you know how the plumbers house is the last to have the plumbing work attended to...) Anyway neither of us are very technologically talented and haven’t managed to produce a CD of music to ride today’s freestyle Tabla (dressage pony) comes from a ‘T’ line of horses. His grandfather was Thafma (pronounced Tarfma) which is the Greek word for miracle, his son Tihar is out of a mare named Lightning. Tihar is an Indian ‘festival of the lights’ and a tabla is an Indian drum. Soooo... in lieu of a CD today we have Trapper on electric drums with an Indian tabla feel. This has not been rehearsed..... Tabla may even have a melt down. Now....this is totally against the rules of Freestyle to have live accompaniment so Pip will not be in the running for a placing, but Tabla’s reactions may make the performance entertaining?! Pip could not scratch because Anne Marie put the fear of God into her saying she had better not scratch because the Freestyles were programmed so as not to clash with the other tests Pip & Tabla were entering. So here we go ...... I hope the rider stays on the horse and the horse stays in the arena!" Needless to say Pip managed Tabla beautifully and received a very impressive 61.84% (HC) from the judges. Jon was heard to say afterwards something to the effect of "that's easy, why didn't you tell me that's all you wanted!" I am sure many of the ladies out there can relate to Pip's frustration but we will all look forward to next year's CD. FSCDA have Hetty to thank for encouraging and supporting our riders over the past few years to have a go at Freestyle. She has kindly donated her time on a number of occasions to travel down from Moruya to run Freestyle clinics or just to help rider perfect their routines. Here is a little background from our Freestyle guru. "I first started riding freestyles more than 15 years and for the next five years my best friend and I had lots of fun doing Pas De Deux. We even did freestyle at Rosehill Racecourse on Golden Slipper Day, as a demonstration. Our highlight was doing freestyle with seven riders to the music of The Magnificent Seven. Khossie came into my life six years ago and I am enjoying every minute spent with him. He is a 16.1 hh thoroughbred and he will be 21 years old next January. He is a very well mannered horse and even after weeks without being ridden, he is gentle but finds it difficult to find second gear. I found the music for this freestyle on my favourite website some four months ago. Unfortunately soon after I started work on my pattern I became ill and for the next eight weeks was unable to ride. The first day back into the saddle was very slow, Khossie did not want to go past first gear. We were both very unfit and it is only these last few days that I have finished putting the pattern together for today. As you can see I like bling and have had a lot of fun putting my costume together, not necessarily true Spanish, sort of a cross between matador and Spanish. I hope you enjoy our freestyle as much as we will enjoy performing for you." The second highest score went to the lovely Pas de Deux performed by Trish Hayes riding Clayton Little Lola and Colleen Meredith on Drifter's Gold (Nugget). Colleen and Nugget have worked really hard developing their partnership over the past 3 years. He has grown from a very timid 3 year old to a confident, handsome, trustworthy gentleman thanks to Colleens love and patience.