BERMUDA

REPORT FOR GROUP IV JUNE 2006

Since our last report in October our season has been very active with shows or harness pony racing virtually every weekend at the National Equestrian Centre, until the final competition of the season, the CEA Junior Jumping Competition in May, when we were narrowly beaten in a jump-off against Jamaica, with Antigua finishing close third.

We have also experienced the benefit of dressage and jumper clinicians from overseas, the expenses for which are partially subsidised by a small grant from Government.

We held our FEI World Jumping Challenge in October and were happy with the results, where we placed first in Category B and 2^nd in Category A.  We consider the FEI Competition a valuable asset world wide and expressed our concerns when the FEI Development Department decided to change the format of Category B for 2006.

We were also pleased with our results in the FEI Dressage Challenge 2005 when our children placed in the top four Group X.  In March we hosted the first round in our area of the 2006 competition with 18 riders taking part.  Unfortunately our results were not too impressive this year.

The CEA Junior Jumping Competition is an important competition for member countries and has now expanded to include an Adult Competition based on the FEI Challenge format..

In May we were represented at the FEI General Assembly in Kuala Lumpur, and enjoyed the interaction with other Group IV members.  Best wishes to Don Adams who has left Equine Canada.

We would like to include congratulations to our Heidi Mello who has recently qualified as an International Course Designer.  Her expertise as a farrier and FEI Steward have also been acknowledged by being invited to Manila, Malaysia and Singapore to assist with their horses and competitions.  She also assisted the US Team at the World Cup Finals.

We have riders competing in Europe at International level in Show Jumping and Eventing and Dressage and hope to have representation in WEG 2006 at Aachen and also in the PanAm Games in Rio in 2007.  We are hesitant about 2008 Olympics, due to climate conditions and quarantine requirements in Hong Kong.

Congratulations to the United States in being awarded the FEI Games in 2010.  Unfortunately the name World Equestrian Games has disappeared in the interests of marketing.  What a pity, however the event will still have the full support of Group IV.

It is our intention to hold an FEI Stewards course in September 2006.  This will be a regional course and hopefully will be classified as OFFICIAL once we get through the red tape.  We also intend to hold an FEI Level 2 coaches course in 2007 after our plans for 2006 fell through.