IW Riding Club national winners. From left, Karen Begley on My Mission Impossible, Lorie Sims on The Optimist, Alison Rann on The French Connection, and Kirsty Hume on Storming Norman. Picture by Peter Boam.
RIDING
A FANTASTIC four have done it again for the IW Riding Club, earning the club’s second successive novice title at the National Eventing Championships, in Aston-le-Walls, near Daventry.
Karen Begley and My Mission Impossible, Alison Rann and French Connection, Lorie Sims and The Optimist, and Kirsty Hume and Stormin Norman, produced the goods over two days to retain their title.
The event began with dressage, where all four horses and riders completed a test in four separate rings.
Each were ranked within their ring, with Karen coming second, Kirsty coming ninth and Alison coming 15th.
Meanwhile, Lorie won her ring, and her score was the highest across all four rings to take the individual title.
In the afternoon, the riders took on the showjumping course, all going clear to take a strong overnight lead and the team knew that, by all going clear in the cross-country — which they achieved — they would win.
In team eventing, all teams can discard their worst score of the four, but all four scores were so good for the IW that they won a separate prize for having the highest overall team score too.
Karen said: "We had two new members in the team this year from last year’s winning squad, so it was great to repeat our victory."
Reporter: sport@iwcpmail.co.uk