Both our teams finished on zero jumping scores but placings were decided on a combination of jumping and time faults and so riders had to judge their speed through the timed cross country phase of the course with great care!  This left the Cranleigh Blue Team of Hattie Allison, Imogen Thomas, Tom Lane and Genevieve Clarke in 4th and the Gold Team of Madeleine Iafrate, Chloe Allison, Bella Roberts and Leah Peatroy in 8th. Another excellent round by Hattie gave her 4th place once more in the individual competition.

 

The jumps in both phases became more technical in the 2’9 to 3’ class but this did not phase the Cranleigh Riders who took 3 out of the 6 top places in the team event and produced the individual winner in Izzy Curran, riding her relatively inexperienced youngster, Hot Mercury. She only narrowly beat Harri Snelling, who finished 2nd with Katie MacDonald 4th and Emily Stovold 8th. This meant our Blue Team of Emily, Katie, Alice Wait and Imogen Way won this event, with the Red Team of Harri Snelling, Izzy Curran, Bella Roberts and Cammie Millar in 4th and the Gold Team of Madeleine Iafrate, Imogen Way, Tom Lane and Genevieve Clark in 6th.

 

The Open Class produced some very determined riding although we were unlucky to accumulate some jumping faults, mainly at the penultimate fence which had clearly been designed as the ‘bogey’ fence! 

However, our timings were good and this meant that once again we found ourselves in the final line-up, with the Gold Team of Imogen Way, Anna Rickenberg, Emily Stovold and Alice Wait finishing in 4th and the Red Team of Imogen, Izzy Curran and Katie MacDonald in 6th. Imogen sneaked into 8th place individually on the first of her two ponies, High Flyer IV. Team Manager, Chris Allison, commented, ‘This was an excellent start to the new season and it will have earned us a number of league points. Our riders are to be commended for the way they represented us and I was delighted to have some new young Prep School pupils joining the teams for the first time. The experience and enjoyment this gives these young riders is every bit as important as the results.’