The GB TREC Young Rider Team has returned from the TREC Young Riders European Championships 2017 with a Team Bronze medal!
The Championships were held at the Parc Equestre Fédéral in Lamotte-Beuvron, France from 31 August to 2 September 2017.
43 riders from 12 European nations took part in the competition.
Caitlin Crossley and her Dales pony Adamfield Flashlight, Alex Robinson and her Welsh Section D Trefnant Royal Warrior and Jo McCormac and her Irish pony Apache held onto their team ranking of third throughout a tough competition – their achievement even more impressive as they did not have the luxury of a 4th team member and a discard score that could be dropped for the Team rankings.
The horses and riders arrived at the impressive Parc Equestre Fédéral in Lamotte-Beuvron on Monday the 28th August after a long and hot journey through France. The 2 days in the run up to the start of the competition were spent familiarising themselves and their horses with the extensive, flat areas of woodland around the Parc under the watchful eyes of Chef d’equipes Julia Knight-Jones and Anthea Kendrick.
The competition kicked off on Thursday the 31st of August with vettings, equipment checks and the official opening ceremony.
POR day on Friday 1st September was set to be hot! The riders and horses all successfully negotiated the route in around 5 hours and all horses vetted sound and healthy afterwards. Caitlin had a fantastic POR and came home with 213 points – only one of very few riders who managed to correctly ride all 6 tickets en route, and coming out with a 4th individual position at the end of Day 1. Alex managed to hold onto 168 points giving her individual 15th and Jo ended her day 1 on 107 points with an individual placing of 35th – extremely impressive considering this was Jo and Apache’s international debut.
Team Rankings at the end of Day 1:
1st Spain 615 points
2nd France 574 points
3rd Great Britain 487 points
4th Portugal 439 points
5th Germany 435 points
6th Italy 359 points
7th Belgium 274 points
All horses vetted sound at the start of day 2 and the MA and PTV looked set to be tough but fair tests. Caitlin and Flash pulled a solid 39 points from phase 2. An unfortunate break for Jo and Apache gave them 16 points and a very unfortunate foot on the line reduced Alex and Warrior’s score to 6.
The PTV course was fairly straight forward obstacle wise, with a number of up to height logs but the obstacle positioning ensured a range of associated difficulties for the riders to negotiate.
Everyone agreed that the Judge’s marking was very hard, but to be expected at Championship level. Caitlin and Flash bagged 118 points, Alex and Warrior 74 points and Jo and Apache 83 points.
The competition closed on Saturday the 2nd of September with prize giving and the obligatory celebrations on the Saturday evening.
Individual Results:
Caitlin Crossley & Adamfield Flashlight 4th with 370 points
Alex Robinson & Trefnant Royal Warrior 27th with 248 points
Jo McCormac & Apache 35th with 206 points
Team Rankings:
1ST France with 1122 points
2nd Spain with 1041 points
3rd Great Britain with 831 points
4th Italy with 827 points
5th Portugal with 785 points
6th Germany 702 points
7th Belgium 520 points
A delighted Team GB safely returned from the competition after another long journey on Sunday the 3rd September.
The Riders, horses and their support crew would like to sincerely thank everyone who has supported them in their efforts in getting to the competition.
We would particularly like to thank White Horse TREC Group and the Central TREC Group for their financial contributions towards the rider’s expenses for this trip. We would also like to sincerely thank Just Chaps, Performance Equestrian, and NAF for their continued support with uniforms and equipment and also to Laura of Handwoven Browbands for her generous gifts.
We are already looking forward to the 2018 Championships, which are being held near Rome in Italy.
