BRC Cross Country National Finals Aston-Le-Walls 2008 (The Festival of the Hunter)
Click here for a photo of Emily showing us how its done!
For the 2nd year in succession the club qualified a team for the Senior Novice Finals plus an Individual for the reinstated Junior Open Finals. The Novice team comprised of Nicky Gurden, Jane Taggart, Allison Ingram (replacing Nicky Hill who no longer had the horse she qualified on) & Juliette Huckstep who replaced last years National Champion for the Club - Christine Hartfield. Christines great horse Jasper is unfortunately injured and on box rest & she kindly let Juliette take her other horse Meg in her place. Emily Greenwood was our entrant in the Junior Open finals.
The team travelled up on the Friday night & were stabled locally to the event in 3 different locations but met for dinner in an 'interesting' local pub that seemed to be stuck in a 1970's time warp! The rain managed to stop for Saturday & on walking the course it seemed a fair test set at BE Intro level with 2 main bogey fences, an up to height trakener with a lovely large wet ditch underneath & a cleverly placed corner right by the collecting ring. The speed was 450mpm with 0.4 secs for every second over or under the time allowed, best 3 scores to count with the lowest score winning. Nicky on her bouncy Welsh Cob Jack were first out for us, Jack showed all his youthful enthusiasm at 6 and flew round the course pulling Nicky's arms out, they finished a great 5 seconds over the time for 2 penalties. Jane then followed on with Llani who 2 years ago put a nail through his foot & pedal bone & it was though he would never compete again or even possibly survive. Although to the casual observer they looked to be having a very relaxed round they came through the finish 7 seconds under the time for 2.8 penalties. Allison was our 3rd team member on Woody, her main concern was not going too fast for the speed as although Woody may not have long legs they go very fast! Allison tried to keep to a good speed but he was still too fast as 12 seconds under the time for 4.8 penalties. Juliette then had the lucky task of going round knowing all her team members had gone clear & were ensuring the team were somewhere near the top of the leader board. This was fortunate as Juliette & Meg were on a great round until they came to the corner where Meg, distracted by the collecting ring just never saw the fence until too late & had a run out, before going on to complete. Juliette gave herself a good talking too afterwards for being too relaxed as Meg loves her jumping & if she sees the fence will always try to jump it! The team finished on 9.6 penalties & it was a close call between us & High Wycombe as to who would come out on top. In the end High Wycombe tool the honours just 0.8 penalties (2 seconds) ahead with Ardingly in 2nd for the 2nd year running which was a great result. Nicky finished the best of the team in individual 11th place.
The Junior Open was held the following day over a substantial BE PN course run at the faster speed of 490mpm, with some tricky technical lines that required accurate riding. Emily had a long time for wait for her round having arrived on the Friday, competed in the Working Hunter Pony on the Saturday (showing classes are part of this event) and then not going cross country until 1430 on the Sunday. But they did not let us down and her and Daisy flew round clear 6 seconds under the time. This finished them in a great 4th place individually just 5 seconds behind the winner, making the journey worthwhile.
Aston-Le-Walls is a great location & the Club had a fun, successful weekend and the teams would like to thank our back up crew of Cliff, Andy, Christine & Bridget who were there to give us great support.
