Have a try at Western Equitation

Since I’ve been in France I have tried many different equestrian disciplines: TREC, Endurance, Show Jumping, Dressage, Horseback Archery, Rallys, Equifeel and now Western Equitation. Having an extremely motivated and dynamic local equestrian centre - Centre Equestre du Pays de Beaumontois (CEPB) - has really helped me to ‘have a go’. My aim is to have happy horses and to make sure we have a really good base of knowledge with our horsemanship techniques, this makes it so much easier to adapt to different disciplines. After having lessons with David Daucinot at L’HeXen for over 2 years I really feel like I have progressed with Ras and Voodoo and we are therefore a better team, introducing new things to them is easier and we have a better connection to work things out.

So, Western Equitation - I had no idea what this involved and have to admit to doing no research in advance of our lesson. The ‘stage’ was being taught by Marine Angiuli from ‘Marine Western Equitation’ and the goal was to give us an idea of Trail In Hand, Trail and Ranch Trail. This section of western riding is all about precision, style, technique, reactions of the horse and rider, fluidity of the movements and the ability to increase and decrease your paces in a controlled manner. All of us in the lesson had a good horsemanship base and this really helped as it didn’t take long for the horses to understand what we wanted. At a competition every obstacle is scored and everything is taken into account, things like - your approach, your depart, if the horse touches a pole, if your horse doesn’t do the correct amount of strides. The judge wants to see that you can work with your horse, adapt to each obstacle and pass each one as correctly as possible.

CEPB are holding a Western Equitation competition on Sunday March 3rd, there will be 3 different classes: Trail In Hand, Trail and Ranch Trail with different club sections within each class. For most of us it’s the first competition we have done so if you fancy having a try come along and join us. Everything will be explained on the day and we are an extremely friendly bunch!

Please feel free to contact me if you want any further information.