SEVENOAKS RIDING CLUB

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REPORT

After months of preparation, practice, costume making and tweaking, the Sevenoaks Riding Club Quadrille team of Briony Bunch on Highjinx Jack, Maureen McDonnell on Evidence, Sue Pinks on Black Jack and Juli Southby on Burt, went to the British Riding Clubs’ national qualifying competition at Addington Equestrian Centre, hoping to win one of the four coveted final places to appear at the pre-Christmas Olympia Horse Show. 

Their theme was Eastern Promise and the costumes were a wonderful mixture of pinks and silver, with the riders dressed as ladies of the harem and the horses in silver rugs and mane covers, and sporting bright pink plumes on their bridles.  No attention to detail was spared and the costumes were well received by the judges.

The team performance was great fun, if nerve racking, and 5 ½ minutes of well rehearsed movements went by in a flash. Three of the riders and their horses had never been in a quadrille before and the horses performed well under the stress of the watchful eyes of a large crowd.  The standard of competition from the 18 teams entered was incredibly high and Sevenoaks were not destined to be one of the lucky four to go to Olympia this time.

The team praised their sponsors, Bell Equine, Oakwrights, Mark Scott Arenas and Oakland Vale, for their generous support and said that they were already planning next year!

Sue Pinks riding Black Jack had also qualified for the Senior Novice Freestyle to Music class on the Sunday and with the rest of the quadrille team behind her, giving all their support and making her smile in the arena, she had, in her words, 'the best ride of my life' to her new routine to music by John Williams.  She held 3rd place until the very final competitor in a class of 43 went in and then dropped to 4th place by just ½ of a percent; a great achievement. Sue thanks her team-mates for their support.

Maureen McDonnell riding Evidence was just out of the awards in eleventh place in the Elementary Freestyle to Music class.

Sue Pinks must have had a sense of dejavu at the London and South East Dressage to Music Championships, when she found herself in a similar position the costume class, where as Zorro she dropped from second to third place when the final rider equalled the score of the rider holding the lead.

Earlier in the day Briony Bunch on Highjinx Jack had taken fourth place in a plain-clothes Novice Freestyle.