Worcester Riding School riding high

By Worcestershire Life on January 17th 2012

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Worcester & District Riding Club celebrated its golden jubilee with a gala dinner and celebrity guest speaker – internationally best-selling novelist Fiona Walker – who also presented awards.

The club was affiliated to the British Horse Society in 1961, having been started a few years earlier by a group of friends in the Broadheath area of Worcester.

In the early days most activities took place around Broadheath and members’ shows were held at Tomkins Farm, Martley, home of the Ganderton family. At that time one of the teachers at schooling sessions was Marge Disney, who ran Fairfield Riding School near Bromsgrove, which had only the second indoor school in the country. Miss Disney was highly regarded in the horse world and went on to run the stables at Hagley Hall.

As the club prospered and grew, events were held at a number of Worcestershire venues, including High Park in Droitwich, owned by Henry Pittaway at the time, attracting good entries from all over the region.

The horse which won the club’s open hunter trial shield the first year it was presented was named Upton, and owned by Jo Daniell. She saw him in a field and borrowed the £320 needed to make him hers. The partnership was to do well all round, winning the four-year-old novice and hunter classes at the Three Counties Show the following year, as well as being reserve champion for three years.

Upton was a Grade A show jumper and intermediate eventer by the age of six and his sale to champion show-jumper Paddy McMahon enabled the newly-married Jo (now Challen) to buy the bungalow she still lives in at Upton- on-Severn. Paddy didn’t get on with Upton and Jo was at a sale trying to buy him back when she was outbid by Harvey Smith. Ridden by Robert Smith he won the George V Cup and, re-named Sanyo Video with Harvey in the saddle, he won the Hickstead Derby in 1981 as a 17-year-old.

Worcester & District Riding Club continued to go from strength to strength and its 25th anniversary in 1986 was celebrated with silver-banded rosettes. The 144 members that year keenly supported even the members’ only shows, where entries could top 25 in the showing sections.

In the 1980s other riding clubs were formed around Worcestershire, diluting the membership as those from Malvern, Kidderminster, Ludlow, Tewkesbury, Alcester, Bromyard and Birmingham now had their own branches.

However, in the late 1980s and ’90s the club was still attracting a healthy mix of abilities and managed to achieve third, second and fourth team places in successive years at the Riding Club Open Horse Trials Championships with several individual placings. In those days it was exceptional to qualify, as the only area competitions were dressage, show-jumping and one-day-eventing and there were no novice sections. With no affiliated riders, it was a feather in the cap of the Worcestershire club to be placed at championship level – let alone three years in a row.

The club continued to prosper throughout the 1990s, attracting a variety of members of all abilities from novice or nervous to more accomplished, sharing the bond of their love for horses and supporting each other in their hobby. Further placings were achieved at the British Riding Clubs Horse Trials Championships and a new league was formed, unique to Area 18 to which the Worcester club belongs, with competitions at a lower level culminating in the winning club receiving The Mercian Trophy. This league enables riders who do not have the time or inclination to compete at national level to take part in local competitions and means those with older, younger and less-talented horses can also participate.

As the Worcester club entered a new millennium it was to notch up three wins of the Mercian League, several runner-up places, and continued to do well at area and national level.

In 2005 it fielded the winning national senior style jumping team for the first time and went on to bring the BSJA Eagle Trophy back to Worcester in 2007, 2010 and 2011 as well, twice fielding the national individual style jumping champion. This year the club’s style jumping teams were placed first and second, just one point separating them. In 2006 a club member led the open horse trials championships all the way and was the last person to show-jump on the final day – only to have the last pole down, putting her in second place.

In 2010 the club won the British Riding Clubs Eventer Challenge at Blenheim for the first time in its history, the only club to finish with no penalty points.

And in 2011 membership topped 100, the average age decreased with an influx of younger members, and the club came second in the Mercian League. Members-only competitions last year featured gold-banded rosettes.

These days the club’s open shows are held at Park Hall Farm, Hanbury, due to the Heath family. Training sessions in all disciplines and members shows are held at different venues around the Worcester area. Many top calibre trainers are engaged and members pay cost price or in some circumstances the training is subsidised from funds raised through the year.

In late 2010 the club lost one of its earliest and most stalwart members, Janice Gilbert, and in her honour staged a multi-discipline training day free to all members. A collection on the day raised more than £300 for Macmillan Cancer Support.

At the Golden Jubilee Dinner and Awards Evening last November Jan’s husband presented a new award in her memory for the first time – for a member who goes far beyond the call of duty – the rest of the trophies for effort, enthusiasm, commitment and achievement being presented by guest speaker, novelist Fiona Walker.

Fiona, who with partner dressage trainer Sam Twyman moved to Worcestershire fairly recently, regaled the 60 guests at The Crown & Sandys in Ombersley with tales of how she never got past chapter one (in which the heroine was always tragically orphaned) for years and it wasn’t until her early 20s that she finally completed her first book and was instantly published around the world.

In her retiring speech, during which she asked members to toast the next 50 years, chairman Sarah Lovatt said she had enjoyed her term in office and was proud to have steered to club to a record membership and record success.

All guests received a specially commissioned keyring to commemorate the 50th anniversary and the cake was cut by the club’s longest standing member present, Carol Pointon. Everyone had a cupcake to take home.

“It was a lovely evening and a true reflection of the lovely atmosphere in the club,” said Sarah Lovatt.

“Our youngest members are 18, the oldest in their seventies, but all share a common bond and there is a wealth of experience for members to draw upon. You don’t need to own a horse to belong – some of our members are not riders – and you don’t need to be competitive or very talented, or own an expensive horse. You just have to like horses and people.”

To find out more about Worcester & District Riding Club, visit www.worcesterridingclub.co.uk

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