Starting bright and early, we were all there for the Area 9 show Jumping competition held at Leyland court(19th June). Our Jumping with Style team were awarded 2nd (Lincoln) and 5th in the open section. The team consisted of Ted Carty, Steph Swadden, Wendy Lappingdon and Janine Collishaw, and we also had a junior individual, Abbie Ellison jumping the 75cms. Janine was 6th as an individual in the 85cms, Ted and Harley won the 75cms, getting pretty much nines all through through the test, so the BRC training obviously worked. Abbie was 2nd, so a good results all round, as the course proved tricky. The 80cms team competition saw us field two teams, Claret and Merlot. The first round saw many eliminated, but all our girls completed the course. Tara and Janine went clear, Becky, Lucy, Jenny and Jo had four faults, and Amy and Wendy both had twelve. However when looking at the results at the end of round one, Team merlot was in second on four faults, and team Claret mid table on sixteen faults, out of the 19teams entered, so it was all to jump for.
Well I have to say the second rounds were great, so many Fabby performances, everyone rode their socks off. We had clear rounds from Tara, Becky, Wendy, Jo, Amy, and Lucy, with Janine just getting one down and Jenny getting three down. So both of our teams went forward with zero allowing for the drop score. So Team Merlot were on four faults and Team claret on sixteen. Two other teams were on four faults so a third round jump off was needed. We were last to jump, and having watched the other two teams both have fences to both take twelve faults forward, it was nail biting stuff. It was the fourth round for Wendy and Janines horse, and both had fences down. Tara who had so far gone double clear had one down and Beckys horse had two down, so we went forward with sixteen and was rewarded third out of 19 teams, and the opportunity to jump at the new South west championships held at Hartpury in August. Team Claret ended up a very respectable 7th. Once more our riders looked the part, rode their socks off, were professional in their attitude and approach and as Johnathan Bowman commented “so many of them upped their game today, we didnt have the best horse power, but our riders got the very best out of them, and where we had problems they put the last round behind them and put it right. It was a very long day, and we had to leave Abbie and Steph to fend for themselves as John had a date with Tom Jones.
The good news was the junior riders didn’t need our support, they had their late night jumping sorted. Abbie Robins and Tonto were in the individual 95cms, and although due to jump at 5.30 due to delays was more like 6.30. However the pair rode a great first clear round and just rolled a pole in the second. Steph Cresswell and Uno did the only double clear in the 1.10 to win and qualify for Lincoln. Great results girls on a late and rainy evening. Videos of the jumping from the morning and afternoon is available on our gallery.
