Horsepower for Suffolk Vaulting Club

Hi,

my name is Anna and I'm the vice chairperson for Suffolk Vaulting Club. Equestrian Vaulting is an international sport similar to gymnastics on horseback, and we have been training children in the local community since November 2022.

Vaulting is excellent for balance, strength and flexibility, but also helps build resilience and team spirit. Our ethos is to provide training sessions at as low a cost as possible to enable children from all backgrounds to participate and spend time with horses, and we instil the highest regard for the animal and its welfare in our club. We have our sights set high and hope to achieve qualification for the British Championships later this year with our novice freestyle squad and some individuals!! The vaulters are hugely committed to this goal and super motivated but... we are missing the most important ingredient: A specially-trained horse.

We are lucky to be able to hire Wilma and Barney from Poplar Park Equestrian Centre where we train, however, they already have a job as riding school horses and will not be suitable to take the squad forward to train in the required gaits.

In addition, vaulting is a niche sport and so we have to travel 3 1/2 to 4 hours to the nearest competition to have a chance to qualify. This is expensive for all, and we want to enable all vaulters to compete if they wish so would like to be able to support them. Please help these young vaulters realise their dream to make it to the British Vaulting Championships!