Area Show Jumping Qualifier
Dalkeith, Sunday 13th June ‘04

In spite of many last minute dramas from concussions to damaged backs we finally made it to Dalkeith on the day with 3 teams – 1 Novice and 2 Intermediate.  Many thanks to those good souls who stepped in at the very last minute – Denise Wilson, Kerrie Chalmers and Emma Jane Smith.  Elana Chilton also deserves a round of applause for competing on a horse she’d only sat on for the very first time on Saturday afternoon! – and a very good performance they put in too (Lorraine Young very kindly lent Sea Jay (aka Murphy) when Elana was left ‘horseless’).

The teams were as follows :

Novice:

Horse

Rider

Jane Kennedy

Lawyer’s Silk

Lorraine Young

A Silver Lining

Kerrie Chalmers

Bulmer Bay

Elana Chilton

Sea Jay
Intermediate 1:

Horse

Rider

Jane Belding

Middleton Rozella

Emma Jane Smith

Llansantffraed Charmer

Nicola Jamieson

The Roustabout

Melanie Scott

Gemma
Intermediate 2:

Horse

Rider

Vicky Dalrymple

Miracle Masquerade

Elizabeth Muirhead

Time to Rise

Gwen Smith

Mia

Denise Wilson

Springwater Flyboy

The Novice team ended the first round on a zero score and the second round with only 4 faults but it was a very strong class and this wasn’t good enough to make it into the jump off as a team.  Both Kerrie and Elana had lovely double clears (Kerrie don’t ever tell us again that your horse doesn’t show jump!) but Kerrie wasn’t quite fast enough for a place and Elana had a really unlucky pole down when Murphy slipped on the (dreadfully!) hard ground.

The second intermediate team ended the first round on a score of 12, with only Vicky and little Max managing a clear.  Most of the horses were finding the hard ground a problem and not really pinging in their usual fashion!  The second round started with poor Vicky having a really crashing fall, thankfully neither suffered any damage.  Gwen had a cracking clear round with the team finishing on a total score of 36.

The first intermediate team of Jane, Emma Jane, Nicola and Melanie put in a wonderful performance with a score of 0 in the first round and 8  in the second which was enough for them to win the class and qualify for the finals in Lincoln.  We were all absolutely thrilled and, in spite of a very long wait for the prize giving, they all went off home delighted with their rosettes and already planning ‘the Lincoln tour’ – complete with tee shirts!

You can imagine my dismay when I was called to the secretary’s caravan some time later - to be told they’d made a mistake and we hadn’t won after all!  I was already imagining  telling the troops they’d have to cancel the tee shirts and send the rosettes back when I was thankfully able to point out a simple error which left the scores as they were and we were the worthy winners after all!

A great day was had by all and I may even do it all again next year !

Irene Gillespie (very novice chef d’equippe!)