© Catchlight Photography
Highlights of this year’s event included the first endurance ride, the introduction of Dressage Pairs and the first entry by an elephant (in the costume dressage freestyle to music!).
The Championships, which celebrates its 25th anniversary next year, began as a dressage competition and now boasts seven main disciplines as well as Arts & Crafts, Best Turned Out and Horsecare & Knowledge. Over 100 of RDA’s 500 groups take part, with competitors travelling to Gloucestershire from as far away as Aberdeen and Omagh in hope of returning home as national champions.
RDA Dressage rider, Showjumper and volunteer Matt Dalley had a busy and successful weekend, not only competing but also working with the publicity team. Matt, who is profoundly deaf, autistic and has a condition which affects his strength and coordination, has shared his experiences of the Championships with us.
Matthew Dalley’s RDA National Championships Blog
We just have arrived safe and sound at Hartpury on Thursday with Womble and other two horses from Scropton RDA which they just have settled in well together. My responsibility for this to look after their horses very well and ensure their bedding are completed for them in their stables. I am also one of the National Championships volunteers where I am working with the RDA UK publicity team so I went to do some ‘behind the scenes’ pictures to added them into RDA’s official Instagram page which I will be taking over for the weekend.
Into the first day of RDA National Championships in glorious sunshine, starting with watching some RDA Showjumping before I was lucky enough to meet the reporter for Horse & Hound, Stephanie Bateman for a interview about the Riding for the Disabled supports our riders fulfil their dreams and that the RDA National Championships giving our competitors with many opportunities to compete at the biggest event held at Hartpury. After this interview, I went to get ready for the Para Showjumping class and walked the course alongside few of Para Showjumpers. Team Matt were ready to compete in the Grade ll class and the round was so fabulous and fast which we also get double clear round and won – This is our first win at Hartpury and coming home with the ‘Bobby & Jonquil Solt’ trophy which this is the class prize.
Heading into the second day of National Championships, I started to do some volunteering – I also took over of RDA’s twitter page to do some work including taking pictures in the stables area where we saw some of our groups work together as a team and getting their horses ready for them to compete and joining the discussion of what everyone is up to during this weekend of RDA National Championships. It’s fantastic to see how the preparations went for some of our groups. In the afternoon, I was getting ready to competing our Grade 4 Dressage test outside in such a beautiful weather but it was really hot! I am so pleased with the result where I just achieved a new personal best of 71.50% so this is another incredible achievement for Womble and myself.
On the final I am asked to write my experience over past four days here for The Gaitpost – it has been really privilege to doing this to share our RDA National Championships experience, ending the weekend at Hartpury, I was so excited to be presented our Gold Medal in the afternoon presentation from Dressage Anywhere which I won the Grade 4 class from the RDA Online Championship Show in May.
I thought this year’s RDA National Championships run smoothly well – I wanted to say big thank you to all of our Championships Volunteers for their hard work, dedication and support during the weekend. Massive thanks to the Players of People’s Postcode Lottery for their continuous support and making the National Championship happen for over nearly 500 qualifying competitors!
You can keep up with Matt at @RDAMattDalley and @TheParaRiderMD.
