We won a TREC!

Well yesterday we did our first official TREC competition, just at club level which is the lowest level......and we won! And no, we weren't the only team in the competition.....

First up in the morning was the PTV, the Parcours en Terrain Varié or obstacle course as we know it. We had to do a slalom, a maniabilité test which was a pretty narrow s shape to negociate between poles, Gandalf had to do turns on the forehand to get round!

Then there was a little log which most people jumped, but we stepped over, then ride up a slope, dismount, lead down a slope, get back on with the horse standing in a circle which it musn't move out of, over a little brush jump (or walk, in Gandalf's case, Ches jumped it though!) get off again, lead over a bridge, then the horse had to stand in a circle and not move for 10 seconds (immobilité) whilst the rider walked away, G & C very good at this due to grass being available to eat! Then we had to get back on, ride through a "passerelle", a corridor of poles, one wide one and one narrow one, then more immobilité but mounted this time.

Some pics (courtesy of Stewart!)

After that was the Maitrise des Allures, or control of paces. You have to canter down a track as slowly as possible and walk back along it as fast as possible. We definitely need more practise!! Gandalf started off OK at the canter but down the end was spooked by a dog and shot off the track in a bid to get back to the other horses, I got him back on track but he dropped to a trot so we lost all our points......and Ches refused to canter at all so didn't get any points either! 

In the afternoon we did the POR, Parcours d'Orientation, the map reading bit. We went wrong a couple of times, one of the tracks was really overgrown so we missed it at first but we got there in the end, and managed to find the "balises", the little clips you have to mark your card with en route. We were in a team with Jo on Socianda and a French girl on a huge grey Selle Francais, so our boys had to do a fair bit of trotting to keep up!!

And of course, a pic of the trophy!