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Dressage at Hickstead
8 June 2009
This is the second big event organised by the Regional Committee and held at the prestigious showground at Hickstead. Organised as a formal dressage event, riders can do a simple non- qualifying test or a test up to paralympic level that qualifies for the RDA National Championships. At Cranleigh we don’t have a ‘dressage’ horse, although given time, Perdigau, our Camargue pony, might just make one, but nevertheless the ponies do very well and this year we were able to send eight riders to ride non-qualifying tests on four of our ponies.
In the weeks leading up to the competition riders and instructors are busily focussed on practicing their various dressage tests ready for the “Big Day”. One difficulty is finding the time for the riders in a normal session, so instructors often have to fit in extra lessons in the evenings or at weekends. All the riders dress in the correct clothes for dressage and really enjoy the formality of dressing up and looking very smart.
This year Team Cranleigh did really well and came home with five first red rosettes, two second blue and one fourth – a good haul! We all consider this to be the icing on the cake as the real satisfaction is seeing the riders rising to the challenge and achieving something for themselves. All of them leave the arena noticeably more confident, very happy and with huge smiles on their faces.
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