Le Trec horse-riding competition - by Tiffany Schäfer

On the 17th of September 2016 I - Tiffany Schäfer - participated in a Le Trec horse-riding competition at my horse-riding school Silva Pegasus Stables, which was for fun so we didn't win any rosettes.

I rode on a stubborn horse named Roxy. The horse riders and their horses had to go through obstacles. The first obstacle was that we had to go over plans of wood, which some horses are scared of, then we had to go up and down a hill but we had to try not to break our gait because then we lose points. Gait is the speed at which the horse is going, walking, trotting or cantering. After that we had to open a gate without dropping the chain or meeting the poles fall onto the ground which I found a bit difficult, we then had to walk through poles placed on the ground in an 'S' shape without stepping on or over the poles. Then we had to go through poles in a zig-zag pattern going around poles, when we were done with that we had to do a narrow jump and then go to the backing poles where you try to back your horse away once you walk between two jumps and stop them. Then we did the cantering poles where you canter been two poles on the ground, then we did the bounce where we jump over 4 jumps straight after each other.

We then went into a zig-zag path made by jumps. Horses can be scared of anything so, the next obstacle was quite difficult for some of the riders because we had to walk over a long piece of material and then go under a thing to get to the grass arena, where the next obstacle was. This obstacle was going up and down a 'tabletop' which is a piece of grass on the hill which was like a jump trying not to break our gait again. Then when we came down we had to get off our horses and walk them around and get back on onto the side we weren't used to and then we were finished. After our horse-riding instructors told us our score, we left the arena.

It was really fun even though my horse was a bit stubborn, him and I did really well and we were in the top 10. I really hope my horse-riding school has another competition like this again!