London 2012: Cross Country Course - The Apiary Fences

Bees | Scary Stuff

Your first thought is probably "What the hell have Bee Hives got to do with London or a cross country course"? Well, let me explain. London has thousand upon thousand beekeepers, and produces some of the best honey in the country, the other good place for honey production being, the Highlands of Scotland. The success of bee keeping in London is down to the huge variety of flowers, and lack of pesticides.

Robin Pemberton-Jones, a former governor of the Bank of England, kept hives on top of the Bank, and many of the other best know London landmarks host bee hives too. OK, enough of the reasoning, let's take a look at the fence complex.

The Apiary Fence Complex

This fence complex will probably sit in the latter half of the course. The idea here is if your horse isn't tired then you should be able to take a direct route (red), whereas if your horse is tired you should probably opt to 'showjump' your way through this complex. This is a balance and control question, taking the direct route requires a good deal of precision and balance, enough to be able to bend at a decent speed, so as not to flatten, and end up over the wrong obstacle.
"A" is an 'up to height' hedge with a narrow white gate as an option. "B" is 2 hives back to back (a narrow spread) and the rest are all single bee hives. On the direct route there are two strides between each element. Riders taking this route will need to take care their horses don't lock on to the wrong obstacle at "C" & "D", or spook at the bee keeper mannequins. Anyone taking the slower route will never make the time, but should be able to complete safely.


More fences to come.....

If you're wondering what this post is all about see:

"We're all volunteers and we're all experts"