We’re not just horsing around

At Warwick we’re lucky enough to have countless sports clubs and facilities at our fingertips to make use of during our time at university – one of these is the often overlooked University of Warwick Riding Club.

A small but continually growing club, we offer a chance for Warwick students of any background to try horse-riding, be they beginners who have never sat on a horse before, who want to try something new at university, or experienced competitive riders looking to hone their skills in the saddle.

The Riding Club offer lessons for beginners right up to experienced riders and UWRC’s competitive side is definitely a force to be reckoned with: we have three teams who compete in the BUCS league and friendlies.

The competitions consist of two phases: firstly there is dressage, which comprises of learning a “test” of movements in walk, trot and canter to be performed within a set arena and marked by a judge for style and accuracy.

The second phase is show-jumping which is riding a horse around a set course of jumps. As well as being marked for style, riders incur penalties for knocking down jumps.

Often one knocked jump can be the difference between winning and losing, so the showjumping phase is usually very tense.

The BUCS competitions take place on borrowed horses, making the sport accessible to absolutely anyone who is a good enough rider – regardless of whether they are able to afford their own horse.

Highlights of the 2012-2013 season include numerous individual placings, most notably A-team rider fourth year Will Jebb who qualified for the regionals. The A team notched up some impressive performances as a team; best of all, in term two they pulled their best performance out of the bag to beat Oxford, one of our strongest opponents.

The B team also had several good results, especially a second-place finish in their home competition. The C team had an excellent campaign. It was the first time in recent years that they had a structured friendlies league to compete in, and they never once finished below second place as a team (out of four competing teams), and always had individuals placed in the top three.

The real highlight of the season for us was Varsity. After a ‘trial run’ last year, this was the first year that a Riding Varsity competition would take place and count for points.

We went in supremely confident having wiped the floor with Coventry in the BUCS leagues – and safe to say, the Warwick team did the same in Varsity.

We won by a massive 91 penalties to their 332 penalties (the scoring system is such that the lowest mark is best). Not only were the team scores impressive: seven of the top eight individual rider spots were filled by Warwick Riders.

It was a day of thrills and spills which really highlighted what an exciting sport it is and what brilliant riders we have here at Warwick. We were especially pleased that RaW did a live broadcast of the day and our wonderful sport got some of the coverage it most definitely deserves.

Horse riding really is a unique, challenging sport. It takes a great deal of skill and coordination to balance yourself on a large moving animal with a mind of its own and successfully direct it where you want it to go.

It’s also a lot more physically demanding than people realise. An hour of riding a horse in trot will burn as many calories as going jogging for an hour and it requires a lot of muscle strength and flexibility.

As well as being a a fantastic work-out for your core muscles, it’s fantastic for your mental health too.

It’s so satisfying to develop a connection with your horse and having a much larger, stronger animal choose to cooperate with you.

Interest in horse-riding is definitely increasing, especially after Team GB’s brilliant performances last summer at the Olympics in the Equestrian disciplines.

Two team golds, a team silver, an individual gold and an individual bronze across the Equestrian events of Dressage, Showjumping and Eventing put horse-riding in the spotlight.

If I’ve piqued your interest and you think horse-riding might be something for you to give a go, we are running lessons throughout term 3 – nothing tackles exam stress like some time in the saddle.