1st out of 168 at National Finals plus Lots More Riding Success

Our school riders were very busy over half term, competing all over the country.

We started off at Hickstead in Sussex - the pinnacle of the school riding year and the NSEA National Eventers Challenge Championships.  We had qualified for this event earlier this year; all school teams and individuals had to gain qualification to compete at this prestigious event. We headed off very early and arrived in Sussex at around 10am on Saturday morning. The 85cm Championship class had 168 competitors competing and 38 school teams - a huge class that ran for over 8 hours. We were drawn at just over half way - the course consisted of 18 jumps - including some show jumps, some cross country jumps and obstacles such as a water complex and steps, which all has to be negotiated as close to the optimum time as possible. Despite the course causing lots of trouble our team went well with Josh, Emily and Anna all going clear we now had to wait to see if we were closest to the time allowed.

At around 7pm that evening we were delighted to have finished 4th as a team and to hear that Josh was the overall winner - a tremendous achievement and in such a big class.

The next day we were competing again as a school team in a the 75cm Eventers Challenge Championships and Emily was an individual in the 95cm Eventers Challenge Championship, again both were huge classes with over 140 competitors in each.  Our school team finished 7th in the 75cm class and Emily finished an amazing 2nd in the 95cm class as an individual. A huge well done to the four HZG riders that did so well over the Hickstead weekend – Anna, Emily, Skye and Josh.

Next up was the Bath and West Show for some of our riders, whilst others were competing in the Inter Area Tetrathlon (shooting, swimming, riding and running) at Bicton Park in Devon. Arthur and Skye both won their classes and Josh qualified for the National Tetrathlon Finals in August.  At the Bath and West we had HZG representation in all four classes and we were delighted with the following results:

70cm             

1st place Team: George, Isla, Clemmie and Anna 

3rd place Individual: Clemmie

6th place Individual: Anna 

80cm             

3rd place Team: Anna, Emily, Isla and Flora 

90cm             

3rd place Team: Anna, Emily, Isla and Flora

1st place Individual: Emily

1m

1st place Individual: Emily

Last weekend, Josh headed to Warwickshire to compete for the South West where he had a brilliant Tetrathlon competition.

Mrs Cobb