Warwick Riding Club in 2017

First let me explain BUCS Equestrian: there are mini leagues set up across the country where there are four university teams, all with four riders per team, in each league. Each university hosts a home competition, as we need to use horses from each training ground in order for it to be fair to all teams. There are four horses for the dressage phase and four for the jumping, therefore, one rider from each university rides one horse and your scores are judged against the other riders on the horse you drew to create fair competition.

The person with the best score on that horse in dressage (and later jumping) wins and receives zero penalties and then the other riders on that horse receive, in penalties, the difference of their score from the winning rider. The person with the least amount of penalties wins overall. The team placing is calculated by adding up the total number of penalties from each of their riders put together and the smallest amount of penalties wins. So, that’s BUCS Equestrian!

UWRC have had an extremely busy term this year with competitions every week since week two! We kicked things off in week two with our Championship League team, otherwise known as ‘A Team’, in the first home competition of the year. We started the term off in style with a team first and three individual placings with our very own President, Becca Wrelton, in first place, Harry Rankin runner-up and our captain, Jaime Thorn, in eighth.

But this was not an easy result achievement. After the dressage we were lying in a close second behind the Birmingham team, composed of GB European riders! We brought home the win with four very stylish jumping rounds to get the term off to a great start.

Week three was the debut of our friendly league team, ‘C Team’, which is a league separate from BUCS, created in order to give riders the chance to get used to competing. We ventured to Birmingham for the first of their competitions and the team performed fantastically to show they’re strong competition. After brilliant rounds in both phases from all members, we came away with another team first and three individual placings: Gosia Wojtala in second, Emma Morgan fourth and Matthew Coldwell in seventh.

Week four brought us our next home competition with our Trophy League team, ‘B Team’. The B team had a hard fight for the crown this time around as Birmingham, once again, had an extremely strong team. All members fought hard and rode at their best. However, it wasn’t to be for the overall team placing, with Birmingham just grabbing the crown from us. Despite this, we did still place well individually with Philippa Zoe Hugow in fourth, Katie Voss in sixth, and Charlotte Spear in seventh.

Week 5 was the turn for the A team to strut their stuff again, this time at Birmingham. They had another hard battle ahead as Birmingham had home advantage. Unfortunately for us, Birmingham performed fantastically and took the crown. We still came away with two individual placings with Harry Rankin in fourth and Jaime Thorn in sixth, putting them in a good place for individual regional qualification.

Week 6 was the C Team’s second competition were they unfortunately just lost out to Birmingham and one of our rider’s even took one for the team after a fall in the jumping phase!

These competitions have set us up well for our Varsity fixture on Wednesday, 22 February where we aim to bring home two points for #TeamWarwick!