We have received some important information from AIRC. ABOUT ALL NATIONAL AIRC SHOWS: A. All HORSES PARTICIPATING AT NATIONAL EVENTS HAVE TO BE REGISTERED WITH AIRC. There is no fee for this, but it is mandatory. If you want to do the national show juming championships 19th July, you need to get your horse registered ASAP. (Postal entries close Fri 3rd July. Online entries close Fri 10th July.) It seems the horse has to be registered BEFORE you can make your entry. B. ONLINE ENTRIES - Starting with the Show Jumping Championships in July, entries to national events can be made online on the AIRC website. It is also possible to enter through the club secretary on a special form, available from the AIRC website. ALL RIDING CLUB SHOWS: A reminder that all riders must make their own entry at the show, and present their ridingclub card on the day. It is not ok for one person to bring several riders' cards and enter everybody.

DRESSAGE TIMES for the One Day Event are up under the Events link. DRESS SMART CASUAL - No jackets, no plaits. Cream jodhs, sweatshirt and stock is fine for all disciplines. PLEASE GIVE ENOUGH TIME O WALK SJ and XC courses. This event is for Bel-Air Members only. All grades catered for - especially for members who have not done an event before. DRESSAGE TESTS are as follows - Adv. Prim - BE 101. Inter / YH - AIRC 3. Adv Int - BRC Novice HN1. Open - BE 125. Tests available from Bel-Air.

This is always a great show with Showjumping, Working Hunter, Showing and Derby Jumping. For details, see the invitation under the Events link. Help is always needed so contact Noni if you are available.

Bel-Air are having a barbeque on Sat 15th August. This will be a guaranteed good night out. This is open to everyone. Music by The Kick Ass Cuckoos so bring your dancing shoes!! More details to follow

We are now starting training for the Regional Dressage Qualifier. Those who are interested please text Noni. Also try to get to some of the local dressage competitions on at the moment. Details on airc.ie South Leinster Region calender

Pictures from the Munny Trail are up under Photos. Please note that these images are sized for the web and do not print well. If you want prints of yourself, just make a note of the numbers you want (starting P601 ...) and let me know when you see me in the yard. No hassle, promise. I'd rather you have a good print than pull a bad one off the web. Also, if you have nice photos from the picnic you want to share, let me know. My camera had given up by then... Enjoy! Åsa

The Mini Midi Maxi will be on Sunday 17th May 1.30pm. We will announce a new date for team showjumping soon

Training will start end of May for the Dressage Qual;ifiers. Please let Noni know if you are interested.

This competition is for Bel-Air members only. Teams will consist of 3 people of any grade and will run on the same format as our interclub Team Challenge. All members very welcome. M/M/M on 8th May will be good for practise. Also evening lessons midweek will be focusing on Showjumping

You will find the results of our hunter trials 29 March under the Results link. Photos from the day are available from Hoofprints at www.hoofprints.ie.

There is a simple way to protect your Ifor Williams horse-box, and make life a bit more difficult for people who steal horse-boxes to sell them on. Ifor Williams keep a register of their boxes; who owns them and whether they are reported stolen. To keep this register up-to-date, you need to do the following: BEFORE YOU BUY A SECOND-HAND BOX – Take the serial number of the box. Phone Ifor Williams to check that it is not reported stolen. AFTER YOU BUY A NEW OR SECOND-HAND BOX – Register it in your own name. Keep the number safe, so you know it even if the box isn't there. IF YOUR BOX IS STOLEN – Report it stolen to Ifor Williams. PHONE NUMBER: Call Ifor Williams on 00441490412626. Ask for Customer Care.

The opening day of our new arena was a great sucess despite the weather. For those who haven't seen or ridden on it yet, its fabulous and we reckon we are all better riders already! Springer got a great send off. Being plaited up he was expecting hounds or at least a showjump course but he looked great and got a well deserved round of applause for his lap of honour. Nuala took great photos on the day. You can see some of them under the Photos link.

Riding clubs cards can be picked up at reception at Bel-Air. Dont forget to allow 10 days for your card to come through if you need it for a competition.

Stable Management Classes will start soon. If you want to participate or if you just want more info - text Noni as soon as possible on 087 2794392 .

Photos from some of the Bel-Air mockhunts 2008 and from the Bray Harriers opening meet at Bel-Air, are available under the Photos link. Many thanks to Nuala for sharing her photos, and also to Rachel!

2009 subscriptions are due by 20th Dec. The membership fee is the same as last year €150. Those who gave photos last year don't need to submit one this year. Membership forms are available to download from this site under Events > Internal > Information. Or pick one up at Bel-Air.

Congratulations to Helga Donohoe who won the Slaney Cup 2008 on Simba! After the equitation jumping they were so far ahead, no-one else really had a chance. Not many would fancy trying to gain 13% on Helga in dressage ... As it turned out, Alison and Darina had the highest dressage scores on the day. With 65.7%, they were 3.3% ahead of Helga, which left Helga and Simba way, way ahead. Well deserved, all agreed, and the cheers lifted the roof when the winner was announced. Other placings and a few photos are available under the Results link on this site. We also have a few photos from the dressage under the Photos link. Bel-Air Slaney Cup is a yearly event, where our most successful rider across the disciplines dressage, show jumping and equitation jumping is awarded a perpetual trophy. This year, we ran the competition over two dates: equitation jumping and show jumping on Friday Oct, 10th and dressage on Sunday Oct, 12th. A big thanks to everybody who made this event possible, in particular Noni and Maggie without whom nothing would happen at all!

Congratulations to David Freeney who won the Open Individuals at the Finals. Also to our team of David Freeney, Sandra Stanley, Jane Dare and Tricia Hattingh. Personal best scores were achieved on the day and they finished just 4 points behind the leading team. All the hard work paid off and they did us proud. Well Done

Nuala took some great photos earlier this year, in particular from the hunter trials. They are now available under Photos. Apologies to Nuala for taking so long to get them uploaded!

The scores for the Bel-Air Riding Club League 2008 after the summer show are available under Results. Currently in the lead is Darina on 64p, followed by Alison Boydell on 58 and Sandra Stanley 52.

A big congratulations goes to our 2 teams competing at the Qualifiers. They all put in a lot of work and it sure paid off. Teams were 6th & 7th after the first round with riders being a little tense. Scores improved dramatically in the second round which pulled one of the teams into 2nd place overall and qualified for the final on 24th August. David Freeney won the Open Ind. Class as well so it was a good day all round. Well done again to both teams - David Freeney, Sandra Stanley, Jane Dare and Tricia Hattingh. Gina McGarry, Sandra Stanley, Darina Marks and Rosie Armstrong. Also to Aisling Fenton who did so well as an individual. The only disappointment of the day was that David didn't get time to make his Banoffi Pie. He promises to have it for the Final!

Bel-Air Riding Club numnahs and rugby shirts are back in stock. Available to buy in the hotel.

At our one-day event M;ay 6th, €5 of each entry went towards Grace O'Gorman's Fund. We also had a collection running during the day. Between us, riders, helpers, etc. we raised more than 1000 euros for Grace towards her treatment. Thanks everyone!

On the web, there is a video of the Pony Club Hunter Trials held at Bel-Air recently. It was a glorius day, and there is some really nice footage of our XC course. Have a look, and see how all that hard work paid off! There are two paths to the video. You will find a link to it on www.thehorsesmouth.ie. Or, you can go directly to You Tube at www.YouTube.com and search for "Wicklow Pony Club".

The Bel-Air 70 year party raised more than €18.000. Well done to all of us! Deirdre Hughes from Friends of St Luke's Hospital came to Bel-Air to collect a cheque of €18.201 this week. She met with Will, Aileen, Maggie, Noni, Jake and some of the Bel-Air staff, riders and friends. (Photo under the Photo section on this site.) Deirdre thanked all for their contributions and acknowledged how much hard work goes into raising this kind of money. Our cheque will be used towards a second CT simulator for St Luke's. It will complement two new and two replacement linear accelerators, that have already been funded by the exchequer. The total cost for the simulator is 1.2 million, and we were told most of this money has now been raised. Therefore, it shouldn't take too long before it can be bought. Well done everyone, and thanks again! We know we will have a few more euros to send in a while. Talk to Maggie if you feel you want to contribute some more. There are also a few more photographs for sale and some signed copies of Marsha Hunt's book.