The NZ Friesian Horse Society Weekend was held on the weekend of the 3rd-5th of May, 2024 at the Fibre Fresh Equestrian Centre in Taupo. Members with their Friesian horses started turning up on the Friday afternoon, Some were here even earlier to set up for the Treasure Hunt which was held on the Saturday morning. Everyone was looking forward to catching up with old friends we hadn’t seen for awhile and meeting our new members 🙂
Friday night saw us attending the Fibre Fresh talk, which was interesting and very informative. Best bit of advice was don’t feed your horse like its a human – NO they don’t like variety in their diets (It upsets their tummies), YES you can feed them straight before you do any kind of riding (In fact it keeps their stomach acids from causing problems as the food creates a protective layer), quality over quantity plus many other informative tib-bits.
Saturday morning saw a early fresh start with ice on water buckets and foggy skies, but boy did it turn into a cracker of a day 🙂 The Treasure hunt was done in the early morning and we saw lots of smiling faces. It was an even more successful activity then anticipated (I’m sure we’ll see this again on the activities agenda – Well done Gill on getting this organised). For those of us non riders, there were cups of tea and banana loaf going over at the Glenrose Friesian float, Marianne was doing a great job of keeping us fed and warm plus we had a great vantage point to see the going-ons of the Treasure Hunt 🙂
There was a pretty quick turn around time from the Treasure Hunt to the Quadrille practice in the ever impressive indoor arena followed by those who wanted a dressage lesson with Debbie Clarke. Some horses were well and truly ready for their beds, feeds and sleep time by late afternoon.
For us humans while the horses relaxed the evening was kept busy with a Pot Luck Dinner and the our AGM. At the AGM board members spoke of the things that had been happening this year and what the future plans may look like. We also voted for several of the Board Roles and we have some new board members and other members that are already part of the board, but have changed into new positions.
So some pretty significant changes with some of our founding board members leaving the board. The New Zealand Friesian Horse Society Inc farewells 2 orginal supportive Board Members: President / Registrar Louis Weitenberg and Vice President Baldeep Dhillon, will be handing over the reins with their best wishes and confidence.
Louis and Baldeep and the board at the time, several years ago, were involved in the set up of the society becoming independent from the Australian Horse Society, at the time the ANZFHS Inc. Louis rallied up members here in NZ and we all proceeded to organise our own Society.
We would like to personally thank you for your support, guidance, encouragement and your knowledge of the Friesian Horse. This will continue no doubt.
I promise we will still keep the board meetings to a time schedule 🙂 We also welcome our members in their new board positions.
The Sunday morning was another CHILLY Start with a quadrille practice on our horses followed by a ride around the cross country coarse for those that wanted to. It was sad to see everyone heading off again, but a great
weekend with many successes happen for many of us.
I’m sure many memories were made and we’re all looking forward to the next event 🙂