BUCS COMPETITIONS
This year Tom Parkes is the 1st Team Captain for the BUCS teams, and the BUCS Co-ordinator. BUCS stands for British University and Colleges Sport and they organise the leagues for the competitions, and which other Universities we compete against. There are 3 teams in the Plymouth BUCS league consisting of 4 people in each. Normally the riders on these teams have had some competition experience before, but don’t be put off, if you haven’t, like a lot of our members, there are 3 friendly teams, and about 6 friendly squads, who all train at a similar level and they compete as well in exactly the same style as us, but they cannot qualify for the Regional or National Competitions. Sophie Preece is the Friendly Co-ordinator for the club this year. We have 3 or 4 competitions a year against other University’s near us ( this could be Exeter, Bristol,UWE, Southampton, Portsmouth etc) and a competition at our own stables in Plymouth. At these competitions we ride the horses at the riding stables that we are going to, and we draw out of a hat the horse that we will ride to do a pre learnt dressage test ( usually the same standard as a British Dressage Novice test) and then we draw a different horse to jump round a course of 7 or 8 fences, at about 2f9.( BUCS 1st team may be a little bigger) All the horses that we ride at away and home competitions are very good,but some can be more challenging than others. Being part of a BUCS team means that you must attend training once a week, at Cheston Farm in Ivbridge. Here we have Sophie Osborne who teaches us on the flat and jumping.
Trials for the BUCS teams will take place in the 1st week of October , and you will be given a few different horses to school and jump in front of us and our trainer.
For more information, please log onto the official BUCS website – http://www.bucs.org.uk/sport.asp?section=896§ionTitle=Equestrian
