Happy New Year! New Year’s day was spent cleaning the mirrors in the indoor school. They looked so good afterwards people thought we had new mirrors! They are such a useful tool when learning and training the horses to check rider position and way of going of the horse.

This year we are celebrating 30 years at Witham Villa so watch out for some special events as we get into the year.

In January we replaced the lights in the indoor school so it is now lovely and light and bright in there.

In February we are going to refurb our cafe with the aim of re-opening again now that Covid restrictions are easing. We will be looking for staff to work in the cafe, so please do get in touch if you would be interested in this - email withamvillarc@yahoo.co.uk.

We ran a BHS Stage 1 and BHS Stage 2 exam assessment in January, congratulations to all of those that were successful.

We run training courses for these exams here at Witham Villa and have a very high sucess rate. These are run by Louise Mellor.

We will also be running a BHS Stage 2 Teach course and assessment later this year, run by Nicola Monks

We are delighted that India and Eddie have been selected for the British Dressage National Academy for the second year running, one of only 12 athletes on this Sport England funded training.

Also, they have been selected for a place on the Under 21 International Pathway, one of 7 Junior riders. India attended her first unmounted training session in January under this pathway and is working hard to continue to develop her performance with Eddie (Escade).

They won the PSG Bronze Area Festival at Solihull and are through to the Championships at Hartpury in April.

Verity did her first High Profile show with Izzy (Issey Magic) at Vale View and was pleased to finish in 4th place on 67% in Medium 75.