The 2010 Course
Glanusk is truly one of the most beautiful backdrops to any event in the country so it has been great to be able to design here. Eric Winter has designed 5 courses which is always a challenge as each course and each level has its own needs and requirements. The rhythm and type of questions you want to ask on each course changes as you go up through the grades.
For the BE 90 course (lower level) he has tried to get everybody travelling across the beautiful park in a balance tackling the simple questions like a splash through the water or the ditch with confidence. This is where the young horses and less experienced riders start their competing. View Large Course Map...
On the BE 100 and Novice courses we are still working with education as our main theme but starting to ask more questions. Looking at the training of the horses and the balance of the riders and their ability to work together. Certainly at the Novice level we will be expecting them to jump through the water with enough control to jump a narrow fence on the way out or come down a bank with enough balance to jump a quite big fence at the bottom.
At the higher levels of 1 star and Intermediate Eric has set some quite testing combinations looking for both horse and rider to be in harmony. The riders must be able to recognise the appropriate pace for each fence and be able to achieve it. Too fast and they will not have time to find the line, too slow and they will lack the required power to jump the fences. On both courses there are demanding doubles of corner fences and banks with accuracy questions shortly after which will need careful approaches. Then they will have to find raw power to jump the big ditches and tables that sew the whole course together. There is a big drop fence out of the garden over the ornamental wall and a water fall table that will really look for the trust between the horse and rider.
Eric Winter (course designer)
Our thanks to The Welsh Assembly, and specifically to Sport Wales, for supporting the build. Please click on the logo above for information on what the Sports Wales teams are achieving across Wales. The Glanusk Estate has received lottery funding from The Sports Council in order to support the build of 2 different standards of world class 3 day event equestrian cross country courses. Glanusk already has a new and innovative BE90 and BE100 course that was designed by David Evans and built specifically for the Pony Club, by the Brecon & Talybont Pony Club.
British Eventing ~ Sport Development in Wales
British Eventing views the opportunity which is presented at the Glanusk Estate as unparalleled in terms of the development of the sport in Wales and on a National basis. Click the above logo to see Glanusk featured on the British Eventing website.
The development of Glanusk and the consequential launch of the Glanusk International Horse Trials is not only vital to the overall growth and strength of the sport in Wales, but also offers the opportunity to establish the major equestrian event in the Principality.
We understand that the Estate wish to develop and encourage rider training initiatives and to promote Glanusk as a pre-London 2012 training venue. We support these aspirations and view the facilities and infrastructure that will be established and the competition that will be held at Glanusk, as providing an extremely valuable set of resources for the training and development of Officials, Volunteers and Accredited individuals, all of which will be essential in the growth of the sport on Wales.....To summarise, Glanusk represents a unique and essential opportunity for the development of the sport of Eventing in Wales and nationally across the UK.
COURSE DESIGNER
Eric Winter
Eric Winter spent most of his formative years riding horses, to be more specific Show Jumping, competing at Horse of the Year Show, The Royal International, and most of the major venues in the country. In 1986 he swapped disciplines to Eventing being placed at his first 3 day event at Bramham 3*. This led him on to competing at the very highest levels including Badminton and Burghley during the early 90’s. Since then he has gone on to become a leading designer at all levels, designing courses at over 30 different venues in Britain, Western Europe, and Asia. He is an FEI International level designer as well as an A list designer in the UK. Eric also sits on the Cross Country Advisory Group and was a member of the Academy of Design until it was dispended in 2009.
The other side of Eric’s life is running Severnvale Equestrian Centre, a busy riding school and training yard with about 50 horses in work from the advanced competition horses to some little grey ponies that start the children riding.
Course Builder
Dominic Moore
Glanusk Estate have appointed Dominic Moore from Jump1 as course builder. Dominic started Jump1 in 2005.
The courses will attract a range of top international riders to the Glanusk International 3 Day event and subsequently it is hoped that a number of Olympic Teams will use the courses as a warm up to the Olympic games in 2012. With the investment and infrastructure, the estate hopes to equal some of the best International 3 days events in the country. These exciting and new courses also put Wales on the national and international event calendar as a key event to attend for riders, owners, spectators and the general public as a whole, in what is a stunning back drop of the Estate and Black Mountains.
