Deben Riding Club
21st to 24th August Junior Clinic and Senior Camp at Great Witchingham
Senior Camp 2008 - by
Sue Westmore
Unbelievably, it’s already a year since our last foray to Great Witchingham to enjoy the hospitality and facilities of the Sayer family, and the inspirational teaching of Moray Nicholson. With word out on the DRC street that this is the event to be seen at, this year we played host to 12 horses and 11 riders – challenging enough to schedule the lessons for, but with the additional complication of some riders having more than one horse, and some horses being shared by more than one rider. Enough to make even the most organised pull their hair out! Having learnt from last year’s inaugural event, this time I brought a wipe board to work out the timings and groupings. A pretty smart move, given the torrential rain we had – paper copies of the running order would have been one soggy nightmare……
Although it was a totally girly weekend (with Moray as honorary girly, of course), we nearly managed to kidnap a very nice policeman who turned up on the first night on the pretext of suspicious activity in the neighbourhood. Yeah yeah J However, on being faced by the happy campers who, at that point, were making a serious dent in the beer and wine, he decided that the criminals of Norfolk were suddenly much more appealing and scarpered post haste, never to be seen again the entire weekend. Hmm, funny that!
The inclement weather tried its hardest to put a damper on things, but luckily, Polly had invested in a gazebo (for all that sunshine we were promised), which ended up doing a pretty good job as reception area, kitchen and restaurant. Gordon Ramsey, eat your heart out – the cooking on the camping stoves was worthy of at least 3 Michelin stars!
Despite all of us getting soaked several times, the rain did mean that the going was pretty much perfect all weekend, and I’m sure the horses appreciated the temperatures being cooler than last year. But there were still plenty of grins each day, and lots of recounting of experiences each evening, whether it was Kiwi and Mac learning to do flying changes, or Drake demonstrating how to tackle the water jump (and the importance of keeping your leg on), or just having time away from children and partners to experience one on one time with your horse. Whatever it was, everyone seems to have had a wonderful time, and many have already asked to put their names down for next year. Looks like this is going to be an annual party, girls!
Pictures from Junior Clinic held on 21st August
