The Children are our Future!

One of our riding schools here in the Copperbelt - Woodlands Equestrian Centre. The yard is situated just outside Kitwe in the midst of beautiful bushland next to the Kafue River. There's some lovely places to just go hacking if that's your 'thing' and several schooling arenas for the more dedicated horseman.

Children and adults come here to learn the fine art of equitation under the watchful eye of BHSI Instructor, Lisa - also the owner of the yard. This is also where I keep my daughter's competition horses Amanita and Castle Rock as well as her semi-retired pony Fezzan Al Lahab.

We hold small shows and gymkhanas here throughout the year and are in the process of starting up the first Coppperbelt Branch of the Zambia Pony Club. The facilities are continuously being upgraded with new stables almost complete and a new jumping arena under construction, hopefully ready to use later this year.

Two weeks ago we had Zimbabwean dressage trainer Carole Evans at the Centre, giving lessons followed by a dressage assize. She also held a dressage learner judge's seminar at which we learnt an enormous amount about 'what the judge is looking for in a good dressage test' and also gave interested people the opportunity to practise their skills (or lack thereof!) at judging. It was a brilliant day, sponsored by the Zambia Horse Society. Hopefully some of those 'learners' will become official learner judges and then on to fully fledged Dressage Judges in due course.

Our next planned event is a Gymkhana and Jumping weekend sometime in June as we start preparing our riders for the forthcoming show season - the next major show being the Lusaka Show Jumping Derby at the end of June.