TDRC’s Super Clinic Was Super Fun
Our little club, the Tamborine & District Riding Club Inc, ran a super clinic in November of this year with the theme of Recharge, Re-connect and Relax. The clinic was held at Bellara Park which was a perfect setting for the horse and rider to enjoy a weekend of education and relaxation.
We had the pleasure and opportunity for the riders program to invite some of our local coaches like Peter Acton who introduced us to the basics of Classical Riding and Lisa Koppman who coached us through a variety of ground pole exercises to improve our horses’ strength, balance and straightness.
The sessions were delivered for mounted and in-hand participation. These Day 1 sessions prepared us nicely for Jane Bell to give us an informative dressage lesson from the “Judges View” where we learnt to set up the arena followed by being a scribe, a dressage test caller and ride the dressage tests. The rider program on both days were completed with reflection sessions in the afternoons. These were led by Chris Phelps who fully assisted the group in summarising and sharing their individual learnings as a horseman on the first day and Gaby Doebeli took on the last class leading the group through a Quadrille to Music on the second day.
During the breaks we were lucky enough to have some outstanding educational and wellbeing sessions. Melissa Denton took us through Saddle and Bridle Fitting (demonstrating on horse ‘Sky’ who remained quite asleep for the whole exercise), and treated our horses in Emmett to assist them through the weekend by staying loose and supple. Paula Fitzgerald pampered the riders with open air massages to the relaxing sounds of nature. To start Day 2 Nicole Graham, now our official club YOGI, introduced us to Asthanga to get our mind and body centred before the riding session. The weekend was wrapped up with our committee presenting the riders who have completed the program with some great prizes from our sponsors.
The TDRC committee would like to send out a huge shout out to our fantastic coaches, presenters and sponsors for their support as without them we would not have been able to hold this amazing event for our riders.
The club year is coming to an end with our AGM approaching on the 5th December we will have a break till early 2021. In summary of 2020, with all the challenges we faced as individuals and as a club, TDRC continued to make the best of it and our final event certainly has proven the resilience, the passion and commitment of our group to keep moving forward and improve on what we do no matter what’s been placed in front of us.
Looking forward to 2021!
By Gaby Doebeli
(Secretary – Tamborine & District Riding Club Inc)