THE weekend’s National Day celebrations, on the equestrian front, promptly started at 9am on Friday with the first class of the Twin Palms Riding Centre’s tantalising Twixstead.

Based on the infamous UK Hickstead three-day event, which consists of show jumping, dressage and culminates in a nail-biting cross country course, it’s the same in Bahrain except all three disciplines are completed in one day.

There are two classes – A and B – with both featuring all three events.  Class A, consists of a preliminary dressage test, show jumping with fences up to 60cm in height and cross country fences adjusted for this level. Class B, consists of a novice dressage test, show jumping with fences up to 80cm in height and cross country fences also made challenging for this level.

Starting A class in her inaugural Twixstead was Erin Sandor bringing Drummer out for his first event of the season. The pair performed a beautiful dressage test and there was no time for Erin to rest on her laurels and watch the day’s events unfold as she was straight onto her next mount of the day, Ayax. The only junior in this class was young Manon Cote riding her fabulous horse Sirocco.

The dressage result was taken, by deducting the amount of points scored against the 220 points possible to gain on the test. The competitor with the lowest points would win the class.
Once class A competitors had finished their dressage tests they made their way to the show jumping arena, to allow Class B to start the dressage challenge.

Kate Addison started the class riding the first of her two mounts, The Chief. As soon as they finished she was off to find Onyx to warm-up for his dressage performance.

Once dressage was completed, horses and riders swapped their dressage regalia for show jumping dress. Dressage does not allow for certain types of tack, or the horse to wear boots during a test, different types of tack and boots are allowed for show jumping.

The show jumping class was based on a clear round basis, there would be the appropriate amount of penalty points e.g. four for a refusal, four for a knockdown etc., any points obtained during the show jumping would be added to the overall score.

The show jumping was excellent, with the whole of class B going clear. There were a number of unlucky faults in the first class, giving a couple of riders some points to carry through to the cross country.

Now it was onto the cross country, on a different course from previous events, with some real bogey fences being brought in to thwart the riders, making them and their horses concentrate on the matter at hand.

There were three fences in the starting arena before riders went off out to the jungle – Twin Palms Riding Centre’s back paddock area number 3 was super scary for several horses.

Once over they had to be brought back in hand to negotiate a bend around the massive tyres that had been placed before the next fence. Once through the tyres it was round the cross country course, the tricky bit came at the end when after going hell for leather, horses were then brought back to re-negotiate the tyres before coming back to the starting arena.

However, this was not straightforward, as the route was one that initially led out of the stable, and not to home – this certainly confused some who thought their job was done and it was dinner time! This coupled with the final few fences being somewhat daunting to say the least brought a few horses to a dead halt, reversing at a gallop is not impossible! Now we believe it, but everyone managed to get round and complete the course. 

The results for the cross country were simple. It was a timed class it didn’t matter how many refusals it was about getting over the fences, though if a fence was missed out it cost the competitors a hefty 100 points – rendering them out of the game!

Twixstead is a fantastic event, but the work involved is phenomenal, whilst all riders had a brilliant day, all the horses certainly had a blast – they simply Love to be outside, it’s just the best ever fun for them.

I would like to say a huge thank you to all the organisers, supporters and helpers on the day. The next Twixstead will be in the spring of 2013, and promises to bring with it many more surprises and thrills for everyone.

For more information contact Twin Palms Riding Centre on 39566809 or email Twin.Palms.Riding.Centre@hotmail.com