Area Horse Trials Report
Biggarsheils

Alison and Billy were the stars!

Eventually 11 Ayr Riding Club Members kindly agreed to compete in our area horse trials teams this year, and we entered one team in the Open and two teams in the Novice classes.

The Open Team was Kara Craig on Sir Andromedor (Ned), Mandy McConechy on Tara and Jillian Cooper on Capital T.
Sadly we were unable to field a fourth member.

Kara had a very successful day and with a good dressage, only one down in the show jumping and a clear cross country eventually was 3rd individual - missing out by one place on qualifying for the Championships.
Mandy also  did a good clear cross country, but was unplaced.  Unfortunately Jillian fell victim to the bogey fence - a trakehner with a bottomless ditch, and along with about half the open field had to walk home.  Very unlucky as only one team  managed to complete. Ifs Onlys were the order of the day!

The Novice Teams were:
Team A - Mugs Montgomerie with Hank, Alison Morrissey with Billy, Julia Kerr and and Susan Mitchell with Bouncer
Team B - Caroline Quarm - Fiddlers Fancy, Caroline Cameron - General Montgomerie. Vicki Fairfoull (filling in at the last minute on one of Caroline's horses as her own had gone lame) and Jenny Smail - Storytime
The A Team did very well finishing 5th out of 17 teams, and Alison and Susan added nothing except time penalties to their dressage scores.
Alison and Billy were the stars of the day for Ayr, finishing 2nd in their arena, and qualifying for the Championships.

The B team were all there for the experience and Caroline Cameron and Jenny, in particular were delighted with their horses.  Poor Caroline Quarm's horse having done a lovely dressage and only one down show jumping was then very unhappy going cross country, and when she saw the vet the next day she was diagnosed with fluid on the lung - no wonder she wasn't happy.
My thanks must go to Mugs Montgomerie for chivvying me - a very novice Chef d'Equipe - into action, and also for providing her lovely new training course for the teams to practice, and also to F iona Alexander who helped some of the team with their dressage and was also a very helpful second in command.  But especially to all the team members who all did their very best, and I think, enjoyed themselves.  It was great to see everything one going home safely.

Congratulations must go to Nigel and Pam Carrel for providing us with such a lovely venue and the best weather we had had all week.

Lorna Alexander