31 Jan 2006 - Sylvester writes about our January Dressage Competition Winners at Middleton Park Equestrian Centre

if you read my previous news article (about the RDA National Championships - news item dated August 6th 2005) you'll know that I'm Sylvester, Otley & District RDA's own dressage pony. Today I want to tell you all about our outstanding success at the dressage competition at Middleton Park Equestrian Centre in South Leeds.

As we had quite a few senior riders, my horsebox companions for this trip were E.T, Acrecliffe Sapphire and Hillsbro Crispin. One of our riders brought her own pony and we had so many riders wanting to 'have a go' that we four experienced horses couldn't manage to fit everyone in so a couple of our riders competed on horses kindly loaned by Middleton Park.

So, how did we do? Well, I can tell you that E.T. was delighted to help Megan Herbert gain first place in her first ever dressage competition. (That's ET and Megan in the picture on the right.) E.T. may not look like your classic dressage horse but, for a big guy, he's very light on his feet and he's silenced a few sniggerers over the years. Sapphire went one better than him though - she had two firsts with different riders.

Here are our results in full:

E.T. - 1st (1)
2nd (1)
3rd (1)
9th (1)

Crispin - 2nd (1)
4th (1)
5th (1)
8th (1)

Sapphire - 1st (2)
4th - (1)
6th (1)

Sylvester - 2nd (1)
3rd (1)
4th (1)

Also our friend, Symphony, who belongs to one of our riders, helped her to win a second place in their test. And we were delighted to see two of our riders gain4th & 5th places on borrowed horses which they had never ridden before.

It was a long day for us, starting at 6am and finishing after 6pm but, with the help of our great bunch of instructors and volunteers, we were kept warm, well-fed and happy all the way through and we horses all feel very proud of ourselves.

Our next venture will be back to Vale View Equestrian Centre in Leicestershire in February for the Paralympic Dressage Talent Spotting Competition. The following week there'll be a dressage and handy pony competition back home at Acrecliffe Equestrian Centre so several of our friends who couldn't get to Middleton will be able to try to help their riders to success.