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Hurston Dressage & Eventing

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Hurston Dressage and Eventing's Official page Ali has show jumped to 1.30m, evented to 3* and is currently competing at Inter 2 BD.

Hurston Dressage and Eventing, based in Wantage, Oxfordshire, is home to dressage and former international event rider, Ali Dane. Ali is available for lessons and schooling - please contact us for prices and availability!

24/09/2024

🔹LESSONS🔹

To all my wonderful lesson clients:

After many years of coaching full-time, I’ve made the decision to scale down this side of my professional life. There are many reasons for this, but the main one is that I want to spend more time with Raf.

Going forward I will be working for Retraining of Racehorses in the National Development Officer role, which I am extremely excited about and genuinely humbled to have been chosen for.

As this is a part-time role, I will still have a limited amount of time to coach liveries and existing clients only.

I have therefore closed my booking page online; if you’re an existing client and you’d like to enquire about availability, please message me directly on 07712 776321. Messages on FB will not be monitored.

Anyone with existing credit for discount lessons will be given priority to use outstanding lessons, but discount lessons will no longer be offered going forward.

The livery yard is still running as normal.

Thank you to each and every one of my coaching clients that has made the last 10 years so enjoyable! Here’s to the next chapter 🐎

03/09/2024

🔹STAFF MEMBER NEEDED🔹

We need another person to join our little team!

- Livery yard in Wantage, OX12
- 11 horses between 2 people
- Lovely horses and great community of people
- All yard work, including handling fit competition horses, so applicants must be experienced and confident
- Could suit a freelancer as we’re flexible on days and times worked, but any help on Tuesday, Wednesday and weekend mornings would be amazing
- Can also be a PAYE part-time staff member if that suits better (above NMW paid in all brackets)

Please contact me directly on 07712 776321 for more information 😄
(I’m not using social media at the moment so please don’t message on here!)

04/08/2024

What a rollercoaster the last few weeks have been for the horse world…

I’ve found it really tough at times to keep pushing forward, questioning myself at every turn. But I’ve decided that we need to view our next steps as an opportunity to show the positives in our sport, and I’ve been so inspired by watching some of the wonderful partnerships at the Olympics (particularly Becky - the ultimate super sub!).

So with that in mind, I ventured off to Cherwell with Roopie and Emma, to try our hand at an Advanced Medium. Our goals were to have a nice time with each other, keep Roopie relaxed and happy, and to attempt our changes in public for the first time.

Now, please bear in mind that this time last year we were wobbling through Novices and just dipping our toes in the Elementary waters.

I was therefore utterly thrilled with my little unicorn, who stayed with me throughout AM3, tried his very hardest in the changes and felt like a happy little soul all day.

A very satisfactory score of 66.76% from a List 1 judge was just what we needed to set us up for Regionals next week 🥰

I want to remember today.
This is what our sport is about.

01/07/2024

I’ve been absolutely terrible at social media over the last couple of weeks - as always, summer is a rather busy time!

However, I managed to squeeze in a couple more shows to get our summer regional qualifications completed, ending with a nice 68% in M76 at Sparsholt 🙌🏻

Roops has made the step up to Medium feel really quite easy, and barring one dodgy test (who knew that 3 hours sleep and absolutely zero preparation would equal a low score 🤷🏻‍♀️😂), he’s absolutely smashed it.. Even the harder Medium tests.

I’m proud as punch of my little unicorn - onward to Advanced Medium we go! 🤩

I’m hugely grateful to everyone who makes it possible for me to do what I really love with my best little pony 🦄

09/06/2024

Another gorgeous outing with my wonderful little unicorn 🦄

This time to Hunters - such a great venue with well run shows and super facilities! Although I’ve been going there for years (and years and years), it was a new venue for Roopie. We like to have a lot of space to walk around in just after I get on, but because Hunters is such a popular show centre, it’s a wee bit tighter than Roops would like 😆 But he coped, ably assisted by Emma Greaves.
He then did what was by far his worst test ever at Elementary level, because for some reason the arena to the left of the warm up was jolly scary 🤷🏻‍♀️ But he still managed an overall win with 68%!

And then we did our second Medium test, which was in the other arena. It was miles more relaxed and he was much more confident, and I was chuffed to finish on 69% to take another overall win 🥇

Huge thanks to Emma and Cat for coming along to cheerlead today - off to Regionals we go! 🤩

I’m eternally grateful to have Roops in my life, he’s a complex little creature, but he just keeps on giving 💖

06/06/2024

EDIT: Please do feel free to share/replicate/display this sign - I’d rather it went out into the world to be used freely and help horses far and wide than if it was just kept on social media!

I seem to spend a lot of time thinking about the ethics of horse sport, and whether we, as an industry, will be able to keep our social licence to operate.

Although we won’t get it right 100% of the time, I think the intent and knowledge behind our actions is a key part of the puzzle.

I have put this sign up on the gate of my arena, in the hope that it reminds me, all my clients and other users of the facilities to stop and think about our intent before embarking upon working our horses each day.

What do you think?

Photo: HDE ‘Promise to the Horse’.

05/06/2024

Some of you might have been aware that I recently sat the assessment to upgrade to a List 3a BD Judge.

I worked so hard in preparation for the exam, drove hundreds of miles for training and spent close to £1,000 on the entire process.

And I heard today that I PASSED 🥳

I can’t explain how relieved, happy and proud I am to have reached this milestone.

I couldn’t do it without help from lots of people though - Mum, who writes for me for all my exams, Emma Greaves, who travelled around with me and wrote for all my practice judging, all the tutor judges, and judges who shared their time and expertise so generously and of course Al, who has supported me hugely in this journey. Just after I had Raf I decided I wanted to upgrade, and Al has not only put up with me chasing this goal, but he’s actively encouraged me to KEEP chasing my goals. Not all heroes wear capes 🦸‍♂️ The very best Daddy a little person could wish for.

Here’s a photo of the horse that started this whole dressage journey for me - 22 year old Morris, relaxing in his retirement home. I’m eternally grateful to this horse for allowing me to pursue a dressage career, when he’d already given me so much in our eventing days 🖤

27/05/2024

Some of you might know that I’m an avid consumer of books, podcasts, audiobooks, blogs, scientific papers etc… I’ll usually have an audiobook or podcast in while I’m doing the yard. I listen to and read about a really wide range of subjects, from equestrian and other sports to business blogs and papers on coaching, equine gastric ulcers and everything in between!

Every now and then, something comes along that resonates so strongly with me. This book, ‘Bounce’ by Matthew Syed is my absolute favourite 🙌🏻

Here’s a little quote, that should tell you a bit about why I love it so much:

“The paradox of excellence is that it is built upon the foundations of necessary failure.”

What does that say to me? Things we might interpret as failure, might not be! They’re just stepping stones on our path to improvement.

It’s all about mindset. There are people out there who know far more than me about this stuff, but the more I learn about the power of the mind, the more I feel it’s something we need to actively train and develop.

26/05/2024

A little bit of gymnastic jumping with my very best orange lady 🍊

So much fun getting my eye in again - Aurora really is the perfect partner. BS affiliation is complete and I’ve been eyeing up a few shows 👀

10/05/2024

How lovely for Roopie to have not one, but TWO write ups this week! 🤩

A huge photo in this week’s H&H, with details of his recent exploits at Cherwell (including a mention for the best Roopie nanny, Emma 🫶🏼).

AND a lovely article in the Lusitano Breed Association magazine all about our trip to the BD Associated Champs last October, where he won both his classes with 71%+.

Roops doesn’t have extravagant movement or flashy paces… He’s just super correct and balanced in his way of going and it’s being justly rewarded by judges.

I, as a judge and a competitor, find it immensely irritating when I read posts and articles about how judges need to understand and reward correct training over flashiness, as if we’re being taught to just mark up big movers and ignore everything else. Well, here’s the proof that *most* judges do indeed look at the whole picture 🙌🏻

So less judge bashing please, and more reflection on one’s own riding ✌🏼

09/05/2024

When I’m old, and look back on everything I’ve done with horses in my life, my proudest moments probably won’t be in competition.

They’ll be times like this, in the arena at home, just riding walk and trot on a long rein.

Little Mo is here to be brought back into work, following 18 months in the field due to the wheels coming off when eventing. Absolutely no-one’s fault, just one of those things that happens with sensitive horses sometimes.

I’ve only really done groundwork with him, because he was so worried about life when he first arrived a few weeks ago.

Today I hopped back on, and hey presto… relaxation! ❤️

I’m very grateful to all the owners that trust me to work their horses the way I do - it’s not how most trainers work, but it’s what works for me. It may seem like the horses aren’t always making progress in the traditional sense, but once they’re relaxed and soft in their body, progress comes very quickly. To me, time spent working on relaxation is never wasted.

Little Mo will soon be looking for a new person to love him - he’s a quirky character that needs one-on-one attention. He’d be really well suited to someone who really enjoys the groundwork and building up a bond with their horse. I think he would do dressage, TREC or WE, but it would take time and trust. I’m very happy to talk to anyone who might fit the bill - his owners (who bred him), quite rightly, want him to just be a happy chap, in a job that he enjoys 🥰

06/05/2024

I had such a wonderful, sunny Saturday, coaching lots of wonderful clients ☀️

June is looking pretty busy already, so if you’re after a lesson, please get in there quickly!

I’ll be opening my diary for July-December later this week 📆

Address

Ridgeway View
Wantage
OX128

Opening Hours

Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm
Saturday	9am - 5pm

Website

http://www.hurstondressageandeventing.net/

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Hurston Dressage and Eventing, based in Wantage, Oxfordshire, is home to Inter 1 dressage and former international event rider, Ali Dane. Ali is a qualified BD UKCC Level 2 coach and a BD Judge List 5, has show jumped to 1.30m, evented to 2* and is currently competing at Inter 1 BD. Focusing mainly on dressage, Ali trains horses and riders from grassroots to Advanced/PSG. Clients, past and present, have enjoyed success at Regionals and Nationals, and benefit from Ali’s focus on the psychology side of coaching, which goes hand-in-hand with a sympathetic and clear approach to training dressage.