Our competition didn’t get off to the best start when not one but two competitor’s vehicles broke down on the way and they didn’t make it to the venue. However we still had enough arrivals for a records and ranking competition and started off on Saturday morning with a track we are trialling, the Tower Walk 60. It does what it says on the tin, 6 runs of tower on 60 metres at walk, the only restriction being you can shoot a maximum of 10 arrows per run. Following that we did a canter Tower 90 and then one group of Raid 234, dodging the showers!
Sunday we started early with the second Raid group and then on to the main event, the eagerly anticipated Hunt Track. Just one competitor in the BHAA prelim Walk hunt and she did an excellent job shooting her 10 targets.
The main canter track was 750 metres long with a knock down target requiring a fluflu arrow and for the first time in the UK, a jump shot. Other tricky shots included a hanging cube target and our old friend on loan from France, Gorbag the orc.
Congratulations to our very own Oli Secker riding Zavon who won all 3 HBAE events to take the top spot and also to Amy Lewis from the Ribble Valley Mounted Archers who won the walk competition.
Huge thanks to Head Judge John Goodwin and to all our volunteers who came to help, especially with the hunt track.
It’s hard to bellieve that our little club is 10 years old already! To mark the occasion, clearly a party was in order. And what a party it turned out to be!
The event was based around an HBAE (Horseback Archery Eventing) competiton, the first such competiton to be held in the UK with a full IHAA Hunt track. But of course we also had to have some fun events alongside the more formal competition, such as the Beer Trot which proved very popular!
Day one began with the first walk event, the Arena 30, which saw some impressive scores mount up, including a British record-breaking 117 from Maria, our Chair. Then the first of the HBAE tracks, the Raid 233 was run, and run rather quickly by some of the horses, making for some exciting watching!
Day two was the main event, the IHAA Hunt Track. Two runs of a winding 500m course with 12 targets to hit, including a longshot at 30m, ground shots and an offside shot. The course also contained a technical element, a stop box where competitors needed to keep the horse absolutely still whilst taking their shot at a Tabla target. A real test of riding as well as shooting!
We also ran a shorter intermediate Hunt track that could be done at walk or trot. After the excitement of the hunt track, there was an unmounted Wand Shoot, aiming for a very narrow target with only 3 arrows allowed in a fast knock out competition with increasing distances from the target. Some sharp shooting from Katherine saw her take the prize for this one!
Then the final event of the day – the Beer Trot. Riders needed to carry a pint of beer down the 90 metre run in trot spilling as little as possible. Marks were also awarded for style. We had a lot of people clearly highly skilled in not losing their beer, since they got to drink the beer afterwards! Top prize went to Becca for this one, and a special prize for Dom who not only didn’t spill any beer whilst trotting but also not even when her pony decided to rear!
Finally the day was rounded off with a barbecue and firepit with marshmallows to toast……
Day 3 was for the final HBAE track, the Tower 90. Some very impressive scores in this competition and not one but two British national records set, Katherine shot a senior record and Issy a new junior record!
We also ran a final fun event, the Two Towers, just at walk but with a tricky Orc target to hit as well as two tower targets.
Final results for the HBAE competition, congratulations to winner Nick, with Michael and Katherine runners up. We would like to thank all competitors, helpers, judges Helen, Maria, John, Alick, Mike, Chris and Black Fox Archery for being such an excellent host. Here’s to the next one!
We ordered good weather for our competition on February 2nd and the sun came out. We were back at CCR Equestrian near Gloucester where we can set up a 90 metre track in their impressive outdoor arena.
It was lovely to see everyone again after a long winter off and the horses were pretty good for a first comp of the year.
Results were as follows:
Arena Walk 30
Oli Secker on Rhodium Star
Eowyn Barnes-Short on Kinnskjona
Dom Calton on Fraoch
Kathryn Wakeman on Leo
Andie Pier on Lottie
Tabla 4 Walk
Michael Ruby on Mr Dun
Nick White on Conquistador
Ros Jones on Monkey
Dom Calton on Fraoch
Alick Natton on Kinnskjona
Kathryn Wakeman on Leo
Andie Pier on Lottie
Raid 23
Dom Calton on Monkey
Eowyn Barnes-Short on Kinnskjona
Tabla 4
Ros Jones on Monkey
Congratulations to all who competed and as always hige thanks to our judges Helen, Maria and Chris and to everyone who came to help.
Last weekend we went to Checkendon Equestrian Centre for a two day WFEA competition. This track, inaugorated by Lajos Kassai a few years ago, is a bit different to the usual IHAA tracks we run. It’s 99 metres long, has banked sides and a turning target that follows the rider along the track.
Each rider has 3 warm up runs and 9 scored runs, so plenty of shooting time. Our riders didn’t do too badly on day one, with Ali ending up with a bronze medal. Day 2 saw everyone improve on their score from the previous day, with personal best competition scores from Michalel, Oli and Ali.
Results were as follows:
Dimitrios Christou
Aron Sebesteny
Michael Ruby
Ali Barnes-Short
Eowyn Barnes-Short
Oli Secker
Glenn May
Paul Higgins
Yvonne Munro
Many thanks to Dimitrios at Checkendon for organising and we are looking forward to the next one!
Last weekend saw the first edition of the Cotteswold Open competition, our first IHAA 2 star competition with Records and Ranking status.
The weather was not too kind, but we did manage to go ahead with the competition as planned. We had competitors from Kent, Wales and Lancashire joining us for the first time and it was lovely to see some new faces as well as catching up with old friends.
Podium results as follows (full results on ihaa.eu)
Arena 30 Walk:
Lauren Fell
Andie Pier
Henry Matcham
Mini Mamluk Walk:
Henry Matcham
Andie Pier
Oli Secker (HC)
Raid 234:
Michael Ruby
Ross Baugh
Rebecca Hills
Tower 90:
Cora Moore
Michael Ruby
Ross Baugh
Skirmish:
Michael Ruby
Ross Baugh
Rebecca Hills
Congratulations to everyone who braved the rain and took part and huge thanks to our judges Helen, Maria, Mike and Ross and to our army of helpers. See you all again next year!
We were invited to bring the horses along to the annual Black Cat reenactor’s event and we had a great weekend talking to people about the sport and doing some demonstrations of horseback archery throughout the weekend. We had also been asked to join in the battle at the end but the horses were definitely not keen on heading to a battlefield filled with people in clanking armour!
This August saw the first edition of the UK 4 Nations horseback archery competition, with the first live stage taking place at our summer camp in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, run by IHAA level 2 judges Helen and Maria, aided by level 1 judge John. It was rather warm but a quick trip to the ice cream shop helped! There were some strong performances across the tracks and several new grades achieved as a result.
Podium results are as follows (full results available on ihaa.eu):
The May Bank Holiday weekend saw our very first horseback archery hunt track competition, indeed it was the first ever to be held in the UK. The venue was Black Cat Archery near Swindon and they were very helpful, providing their big show field and some of their targets for our use. The field wasn’t as dry as we’d hoped thanks to some heavy rain the week before but the top end of it was still useable and we adapted the planned track accordingly. The hunt track isn’t straight, but must contain wide curves in both directions and a variety of targets, front, back and side shots, a long shot, as well as ground and offside shots on the prelim plus track.
On Saturday we held a training day, after a warm up we took everyone around the course on foot to practise the different shots, then later we rode around the course to familiarise the horses with it. Some additional challenges for them were suspicious looking sheep in the field next door and noise from the air rifle range at Black Cat. Finally, we were able to ride round the course at a walk and shoot at all the targets.
Sunday was the competition day, and after repositioning some of the targets, we held the prelim walk class. Next was the prelim plus at trot, although one section needed to be ridden at walk due to an unavoidable boggy section of ground. Finally two of our members braved the canter class, again with a walk section, but the rest of the course was firm enough for a canter. The canter entrants were both left handed archers which meant the course began with a sweeping left hand curve past the long shot target, 30m from the track with 2 FITA 80 target faces, each hit scored 10 points as long as it was somewhere in the scoring zone of the targets. Then the track curved right towards a side shot, a front shot and an offside shot, followed by a circle to the left and a low deer target on one side. Continuing the track after the circle gave archers a second chance at both the front shot and the side target followed by a ground shot, another side shot and finally a back shot on the way to the finish.
Although the ground conditions curtailed the track somewhat, it was still a good introduction to the hunt track, especially for the horses who had never seen one before. The owners of the venue are already talking about next year’s event, which we hope will be bigger and better (and drier!)
Cotteswold Mounted Archers 