Challenging conditions at Hartpury this morning for the dressage teams with rain, wind and more rain. The showjumpers were lucky enough to be inside as was Rosemary Swadden who writing for a dressage judge in the morning.
Now for the bit you’ve been waiting for, the Riding Test team results – David Wood started us off with a satnav error and a deduction of 1% due to Fran having more than 60 BD points at Novice, getting a score of 64%. He was shortly followed by Teresa Carty who also had a sat nav error and then the judge must have forgotten to go to specksavers as she missed a movement so thought Ted had made a second error, fortunately the writer had seen it so no marks were lost but it did disrupt the flow of the test. Ted still achieved 73.2 % to come sixth in the morning session. Ted then went off to join the jumping team and the dressage support team of Rosemary and team trainer, Marie Kent had a four hour gap until the afternoon riders were on. Chloe Reeves did a lovely test to get 82. 5% and come third in the section on her lovely pony Wiggett. Finally Stephanie Swadden was the last combination to go of the afternoon. Snooze did not live up to her name and was very forward, so much so that Steph threw away her stick part way through the test. She also had satnav problems in the same place as the others (it must have been catching) and finished with a score of 62.3 %.
The team were just one mark short of being Sixth.
When Steph saw her marks she said quite loudly “dressage sucks” and Snooze wanted to gallop which had Marie and the others laughing.
Extreme thanks to Marie Kent for coaching all our competitors in the horrible conditions, getting soaked, and with a bad back too. Hope it improves soon Marie. Thank you also for all the parents, drivers and grooms who got our ladies to Hartpury, and thanks to Rosemary for this report.