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 