Senior Camp 2022 was held at Wellington Riding in Hook this year and after weeks of sunshine we were so grateful for the amazing facilities with multiple arena’s on a surface. We set the tents up on Sunday and retired for a goodnight sleep before the ponies arrived on Monday morning, we had a full house of 30 very excited girls!. 

They met their instructors (who were amazing all week) and set off in their rides. The girls get 3 ridden sessions per day and 1 stable management session, it’s a busy fully packed agenda. We had flatwork, arena eventing, showjumping, gridwork, hacking, gallop tracks and a highlight for some was the pony swapping. It was eventful with a few unplanned dismounts on the first day but fortunately they were very good at landing on their feet !!

Evening activities this year meant getting into mixed friends groups and the older girls being team leader, my goodness they were competitive ! A very well put together quiz on the first night (thank you Fiona Davidson and Rachel Jones ), ‘It’s a Knockout” on the 2nd and 3rd nights, with space hopper races, wheel barrow races, basically a lot of giggles and falling over. 

From an educational perspective we were very lucky to have Tor Fenwick bring her Grand Prix horse Millie in to do a dressage demonstration which was thoroughly enjoyable, watching a professional at work certainly gave us all inspiration for half pass the next morning ! We also had India Parker-Smith from Chukka Wellness come and talk to us about strength and fitness with a focus on Equestrian sports. It was highly interactive and tested the girls balance and core strength. 

I was really impressed by the girls' care and consideration for their ponies this week. It was a tough week for the ponies and many chose to sit out a session or skip a few jumps to save their ponies for the final day's competition. 

The competition consisted of Grassroots 2018 Dressage test, followed by a course of show jumps and then straight into the arena eventing, all were judged on style, rhythm and balance. All the skills we had focused on all week. There were some super dressage tests and almost perfect jump rounds, well done girls, you all worked so hard. Thank you to all the parents behind the scenes. Don’t forget your photo’s on MHPhotos.com

Some big thank you’s: Becs Seers was our ‘Chief Pony Officer’ who kept the yard ship shape with first class care of our precious ponies. Our first aiders, Anne-Marie Bibby, Rachel Jones & Fiona Davidson, with Kate Brenton behind the scenes. Our amazing instructors led by Nikki Kerr, James Turner, Helen Francis, Simon…. Tor Fenwick, Josh Hawksworth. 

A final huge thank you to Sue Seers who was my amazing wing woman on this, who trusted me to run a ‘stay over’ after a couple of years of lockdown !