STOP PRESS: NEW VENUE FOR 2012 TURWESTON AIRFIELD, NR BRACKLEY NN13 5YD

2012 has arrived and we have a date for the Show Sunday June 24th.  Its Olympics year so have added another ring with fun classes for children of all ages.  Starting with a Fancy Dress with an Olympics theme.

We have been asked to run a Cleveland Bay Class as Thame Show is not running this year so have added a ridden and in-hand for Clevelands only if its well supported we will keep it in for another year.

Every year we review the number of entries in each class and some we have to drop due to lack of interest so we have decided to drop the Novice Dressage Test, as there were no entries last year, and have replaced it with another Prelim test.  Once again these are qualifiers for the Veteran  Horse  Dressage Series and hopefully we will have a good entry of  'oldies'. 

The other class we have dropped is the Speed Jumping replacing it with a competitive Chase-me-Charlie (2 sizes) and a horse & dog relay.

The Grafton Horse & Pony Show 2012 is in its 10th year and is growing yearly.  An Annual Show started by Chris Henn to accomodate small pony club children who weren't ready for the County shows. It has been held at Westbury Wilds, Brackley, Northants by kind permission of Owen Farms for the last 6 years.  However the fields they let us use now come under a Land Management Scheme and can't be mown until after 30th June so we have to look for somewhere else, Owen Farms have come up trumps and found us somewhere on Turweston Airfield. 

We are a qualifier for the Royal London Show held at Onley Grounds Equestrian Complex, near Rugby in September and Riding Clubs National Championships at Rodbaston College, Penkridge in August. 

4 tests are on offer Walk & Trot, Prelim 4, 12 and Prelim 18 .  The Walk & Trot and Prelim 12 are qualifiers for National Championships.   The Veteran Horse Society have asked us to be a qualifier in 3 of the tests for their series run over the summer with a finals in September.

Everyone of all age and ability are encouraged to enter, take the opportunity to enter classes you would not normally feel able to do, the workers are for total amateurs and although they are qualifiers for the National Championships will not be over 2ft 6in, however there is absolutely no use to have the jumps too low as it will be a shock to the system to go to Rodbaston and take fright over the size of the jumps.  The judges are all human and have all been in the position of a first timer, they have time and expertise and will help in any way they can for improvement in the future.  We have found that many competitors like to enter multiple classes, in most cases the judges try to accomodate this but there is a time limit to how long they can hold a class, please try and see other competitors point of view.