Success for South Lammermuir at the British Riding Club Hunter Trials Championships 2008!

Ellen Edgar, Leah Fleming, Robin MacTaggart and Ailsa MacTaggart headed down on Friday 30th May for the novice hunter trials championship at Aston-le-Walls, Northamptonshire.
Despite a five-hour delay in Manchester while Ailsa and Robin’s lorry had a new exhaust fitted, everyone made it down in good spirits and the horses were staying in at a rather nice polo yard.

The morning of the competition was lovely and warm, with the rain that was forecast nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, the ground on course was fairly heavy going and those who were going early on were going to have a slightly nicer run! Still, the course was very up to height with great solid jumps, but not too much in the way of technical questions. The corner jump was causing a few issues, but we all discussed how we were going to ride it and tried to steady each other’s nerves!

Leah was first to run on Shawhill Hayboy. As trailblazers for the team they had a cracking run and came home clear. Despite feeling she’d gone too slow, she came in with a great time and only a few penalties. One rider down, three to go!

Ellen headed off an hour after that on Macduff. Despite worries earlier in the month about lameness with a cut frog, his adrenalin was pumping and he absolutely flew round clear. She decided he wanted to be doing the Open course instead of the Novice!

Robin set off on Irishman’s Song, but after a sticky start hit problems by jump four and was eliminated. Worries set in about Paddy (Irishman’s Song) and how he had coped with the long journey.
So the pressure was on for Ailsa – she had to complete or the whole team would be eliminated. As the 96th rider on course, the ground for Ailsa and Cumano was horrendous. Given that Cumano hates heavy going there were concerns about how he’d be. However, the worries went out the window when they finished clear and with only 2.8 time penalties.

We all waited with bated breath to see how we got on. Exhausted and hoping that the long journey was going to be worth it, we were over the moon when it was announced that we were 8th! And being the only Scottish team out of the twenty-four competing, it made it even more special. Individual scores were tight and we were delighted when we found Ailsa had come 15th out of 113 riders. Only fractions of seconds separated those placed.

Armed with large rosettes, tired horses and happy riders we made the long journey back to the Borders, delighted that we’d had such a good weekend.

A big thank-you to SLRC for enabling us to take part in both the qualifiers and the 2008 championship. And an extra thank you for allowing us to have a training session with Les Smith at Hendersyde. His help and advice have proved invaluable!