Young Riders
What age can you do endurance rides?
You can enjoy Endurance from the age of 8
Junior Riders are aged 8-13
Young Riders are aged 14-21
Junior riders up to age 11 can only take part in rides up to 50km distance. They need to be accompanied by an adult until they reach their 13th birthday. One adult can accompany two junior riders.
Pony Club members can compete in classes of up to 40km and this can present an ideal route into endurance – for details and rules see the Pony Club site.
Offa’s Dyke young rider rep - Angharad Morgan
‘Hi, I'm Angharad
Morgan. I'm 19 years old and I am now studying at Exeter University
this is restricting my endurance activities a bit. Some of you
might have had the honour(!) of meeting me but I’m sure many of you
haven’t so for your benefit the best way to describe me, besides
amazing, is short (although I maintain that I am no less than 5 foot
tall). As this is my first opportunity to communicate with you I’m
going to use it for a rather boring monologue all about me, my mammoth
(pony, I meant pony!) and my horse. I hope however that as the year
progresses I will get to know a lot of you and will be able to use this
space to talk about your ideas and achievements! Hopefully you’ll also
learn that I’m not half as egotistical as this introduction would have
you believe!
First and foremost there’s me, the most important member of Team Morgan! I’ve been riding (or attempting to) for 9 years and I got my first pony on 18th October 2008 after 6 months of searching and a broken arm! I started endurance in 2010 after being invited on a non-competitive ride with a fellow livery yard member. We’ve enjoyed success in the endurance sphere (at least when compared to other disciplines!), twice making the Welsh Team and winning the Offa’s Dyke Junior Trophy as well as the novice trophies in our first season.
Then there’s my pony, mammoth, best friend, enemy, the cheese to my
macaroni, the fruit to my loom and the most fantastic character I have
ever had the pleasure to be employed by. He’s not your typical endurance
horse. My shining red knight in armour is actually a Welsh Section D
who’s almost as vertically challenged as I am (13.3 ¾ if you want to be
precise.) He had a shady background exchanging hands frequently before
becoming a national level show pony and I think he demonstrates
perfectly that endurance is a sport for any horse so long as they’re fit
and healthy. We also partake in a wide range of disciplines such as
dressage, show-jumping, x-country, gymkhana, jump cross, one day events
and even the occasional rodeo performance. Endurance I feel really helps
you to understand and form a partnership with your horse and gives you
confidence in them.
Young rider squad
The Young Rider squad helps junior and young riders learn about endurance from just starting out to eventually competing abroad on the young rider team. In 2012, one Offa’s Dyke member - Louise Rich was on the EGB young riders’ squad which had a successful trip to the FEI European Young Rider Endurance Championships, which took place at Mont le Soie in Belgium on the 8th September 2012. The team, consisting of Kate Atkinson, Carri-Ann Dark, Beth Langley and Louise Rich won team bronze around the ultra-competitive and demanding 120km course. This is the first team medal for the British Endurance team for over 17 years.
To cap this fantastic success the Bronze medal winning Endurance GB Young Rider team were invited to parade alongside Olympic medal winning riders as part of Team GBR at the London International Horse Show, Olympia, on 19th December 2012.
2012 was Lou's last year as a Young Rider but she is more than happy to offer help and advice to any aspiring endurance rider.
Louise Rich
‘I started endurance aged 10 on my little pony then I
carried on with Czelo, and then the others all came along. I enjoy
endurance because of all the different places you get to go and see and
where you can ride, plus all the people on the endurance circuit are
very friendly.’
2012 was Lou's last year as an Offa’s Dyke young rider. She has her own website if you’d like to get in touch with her about endurance: www.louiserich.weebly.com