British Riding Clubs crown National Horse Trials Champions
20th August 2014
British Riding Clubs welcomed Animalife as the new sponsor of this year’s National Horse Trials Championships, held at Swalcliffe Park Equestrian in Oxfordshire.
Over the three days of the Championships British Riding Clubs hosted two HT 80 one-day events, two HT 90 two-day events and three HT 100 and 100+ three-day events.
Richard Taylor and his team at Swalcliffe Park Equestrian had prepared four testing cross-country tracks for both junior and senior riders for more than 550 competitors who had already qualified at Area level throughout the UK.
This year saw a new Championship class for junior competitors, the BRC HT 80, which proved extremely popular, with in excess of 60 competitors taking part. This inaugral Championship was won by Laila Bedawi (14) riding Sherbet, from Findon RC in Aberdeenshire, with a score of 29. Sherbet, a lovely 14.2hh Palomino pony, is Laila’s first pony and they complete in all riding club and pony club disciplines.
Shrewsbury and District RC won the senior HT 100 Championship on an excellent team score of 87.5 – demonstrating the importance of starting with four team members. Their pathfinder out on the cross-country course, Nick Furniss, who is also the club’s chairman, found himself sitting on the ‘B’ element at fence 12!
Winner of the Carefree Trophy, which is awarded each year to the highest placed homebred horse, went to Louise Knock riding Tullamore Dew from Malton and Distict RC, who was competing in the senior HT 100+ Championship, finishing third in her arena on a score of 29.5.
Animalife Director Ross Riley was on hand to present the prizes along with David Snowden, a past master of the Worshipful Company of Saddlers.
Animalife’s Ross Riley said: “We are very proud to be title sponsor of the British Riding Clubs National Horse Trials Championships. The sense of team spirit at the 2014 Horse Trials was captivating and reinforced our own Team Animalife approach to working with riders at grassroots level.
“The organisers and volunteers worked tirelessly to ensure that everyone had a memorable experience and the fantastic feedback from riders and spectators reinforced this. We look forward to returning in 2015!”