Indoor Championships Roundup 2012

Team ‘Wessex’ did us and themselves proud yet again at this year’s Indoor Championships.

Open Pony; Nicola Blandin, this year driving her own pony was lying in second place after dressage and with only one ball down in a tricky and very testing cones course (no double clears throughout the weekend) left her six penalties behind the leader going into the obstacles.  Stunning times through all four obstacles putting up the fastest times in three of the four left her a clear and well deserved winner by 6.2 penalties and retain her Open Horse Champion status from last year. Finishing on an overall score of 156.83 Nicola was also crowned Supreme Champion for the second year running.

Open Horse;  Matt Were and Pam Evans were our entries into this class both giving excellent dressage tests, Pam finishing .5 of a penalty above Matt.  Pam’s cones round didn’t go quite to plan and a score of 17 pushed her down the class whereas Matt drove all the cones clear but incurred two time penalties, one of the best rounds of the day.  Both drove lovely obstacles but the knockdown balls got the better of both of them, leaving Pam in overall 8^th and Matt in 2^nd.

Intermediate Pony; Tricia Caddy was in third place after dressage but despite a clear driving round in the cones she had ten time penalties which despite good obstacles she couldn’t make up and finished in 2^nd place overall.

Senior Juniors; Amber O’Neill led after dressage but again the cones caught her out, with one down and 14 time penalties it left a huge amount to make up in the obstacles and although she put in a valiant effort in all four finished in 5^th place overall.

Novice Pony; Jo Bassett was in the middle of the class after dressage but she too had problems with the taking cones course and then an error of course in obstacle three left her in 14^th place overall.

Novice Horse; Jack Thorne was lying one & a half point behind the leader following dressage, both had a troubles cones round but left Jack fractionally in the lead, a place he wasn’t about to give up on and followed it up with four very fast clean obstacles to win the class and be crowned the Novice Horse 2012 champion.

Small Single Pony; Hazel Fisher had a wonderful weekend with her little pony Chelsea Bun, finishing second in the small single pony class and sixth in the veteran class.

Small Pony Pair; Sally kerr and her ponies also enjoyed their weekends competition finishing fourth in this class & 5^th in the Pony Pairs Class.

Veterans; David Bull was stunned to find himself in the lead after dressage, but sadly a rough time in the cones caught out this speedy competitor with three down and 5 time penalties it dropped him down the order, followed by a corrected error of course in the first obstacle he finished 8^th overall.

Congratulations to them all.           JC

Indoor Event February 2012 

Brenda May & I spent a very busy Saturday taking calls on and off all day from worried competitors having seen the forecast and amber snow warning on the TV, Radio and in the papers ... several calls were made to the  Sparsholt management but they were convinced that the snow could possibly miss the Sparsholt and Winchester areas and as such were not happy to cancel our event unless there was significant snow in the morning. (If we cancel we lose our £900 booking fee but if they cancel we get a full refund). 

So very early Sunday morning, 5am to be precise, we found ourselves with a sprinkling of snow at Andover and virtually nothing at Sparsholt, so fielding phone calls and texts to all concerned we set off but not before I found my spare kettle, tea, coffee etc.. and having cooked jacket, potatoes, beans and sausages as I, at the back of my mind, feared the caterer might not make it and therefore my stewards would be cold, wet and hungry.. how right I was. 

Out of the thirty booked to compete eleven made it to the venue, some attempted and then had to turn back and many were snowed in and headed back to warm beds which sadly left us with only one or two in most classes although everyone who did make it was in good form and really enjoyed the event and were happy to return home early afternoon before the freeze set in for another night. 

My very grateful thanks to my judges and stewards who joined me, and to Steve Lucas as always, ever smiling and always having a back-up contingency plan ! 

I