At the weekend, Stranraer and District Riding Club consisting of Joss Drummond, Kara Bolik, Ceri Hannah-Williams and Shirley Panter made the long journey down to the British Riding club national championships at Arena UK in Lincolnshire to represent the club in the Novice dressage winter championship class after winning the area qualifier back in November.
BRC organisers did a grand job keeping the show going during storm Kathleen amongst challenging conditions. The team times were split across the day with Joss and Kara beginning by competing in the Prelim warm up class. Kara and Frank performed well to come inside the top 10 in 9th place. The two members then had a short break before then contesting the first 2 tests as part of the competition each riding a Prelim test in different arenas. Joss and Cally performed an excellent test to be individually placed 6th in her arena.
After lunch, team duties were split across volunteering and competing. Ceri and Freya and Shirley and Jackson then both contested 2 novice tests to complete the team format. Both combinations performed solid tests again in different arenas amongst some stiff competition with section scores being extremely close together.
The team were really chuffed to qualify for the championships but as a collective team score were unable to challenge for a top 10 placing. Thanks goes to the club for paying our team entry and we all enjoyed the opportunity to compete at such a prestigious event. We would encourage all members to give the qualifiers a go as you just never know where it may lead.
Apologies for the lack of team photos, the timings throughout the day just didn’t allow for this to happen.
Thanks to Shirley for the report and photos. Unfortunately no photo of Ceri and Freya available.
Grateful thanks to Hannah Torbet for attending as the team’s volunteer and assisting at the event. All teams must provide a helper.
