MOUNTED GAMES UPDATE SUNDAY 13TH OCTOBER
WHPC are runners up in the Prince Phillip cup at HOYS…a tremendous
achievement for the team in their first ever appearance! Well done Kieran
Tuttiet, Astrid Straume-Brown, Isabella Holman-West, Isabel Yates and Jess
Wild, reserve rider Zac Mallalieu and trainer Lisa Davies with Kelly Davies,
manager Stephen Brown and all the mums and dads and support crew. We are
all SO PROUD of you all!!!
WHPC JUNIOR MOUNTED GAMES NATIONAL CHAMPIONS AND HOYS QUALIFIERS !!!
What a fantastic and near perfect experience for our mounted games teams at
PC Championships this weekend ! The headlines are that our marvellous junior
team were crowned national Junior Champions and our senior team qualified
for HOYS in October !!
Junior Team Champions
First of all, our Junior team of Charlie Yates, Millie Scott, Chloe Woodley, Katie Tuttiett
and Isla Holman-West brought some fine form (with just one defeat all season) into the
Junior Championships on Friday to compete against the best 24 junior teams in the
country. They started the day very well, riding sensibly and accurately to finish the
morning heat in joint
Juniors celebrating in true WHPC style!
1st place and qualify comfortably for the champions (top 12) final in the afternoon. They
started the 8 race final very well, finishing 1st or 2nd in each of the first 6 races to lead
by 7 points with just 2 races to go.
They then had a poor race and we found ourselves just 3 points ahead at the start of
the final race (5 Flag). The team kept their nerve and rode a near perfect race to finish
2nd and ultimately 4 points ahead of our nearest rivals (West Hants), with Eglinton 12
points behind us in
3rd. There was very loud celebrations from excited parents and supporters as Charlie
crossed the line in the final leg !!
What a marvellous way to finish a superb season for them with official recognition as the
best junior team in the country ! Well done to them all.
However, the only downside was that we were told that no pony club has ever won both
the Junior championships and the senior runners up event at PC Champs so perhaps it
wasn’t a good sign for the seniors later !
Senior Champions on the Podium
On to Sunday and our excellent Senior A team of Astrid Straume-Brown, Isabella
Holman-West, Kieran Tuttiett, Jess Wild, Isobel Yates and non-riding reserve Zack
Mallalieu competed in the Senior Runners Up competition for teams who have not been
to HOYS in the last 10 years. The 15 team event consisted of 3 heats of 5 teams with
only the first 2 going through to a final, which is an unforgiving format with little room
for mistakes.
The team had prepared well and even had a team talk with Kate Allenby, Olympic Bronze
medalist and Pony Club Head Mentor the evening before.
However, the 10 race competition started badly and we missed the first 2 finals to be 9
points behind the leader ! The team then recovered well to win 3 of the next 4 races to
have a 4 point lead after 6. We then missed another final but won the next to have an 8
point lead after 8 races. Two to go and we knew a good result would see us through. The
team delivered and a 2nd place in race 9 meant we had won with a race to spare !!
The final standings gave us a 10 point lead over Monmouth with North Down (NI) in 3rd
place.
This is a huge achievement as Warwickshire Hunt has never been
to HOYS before and is the culmination of 5 + years hard work and commitment by all
concerned. It should be a wonderful experience and the pinnacle of our mounted games
achievements !
Not only that, but we have done the double with the Juniors and that again is a huge
accolade for all concerned and the first time it has been achieved to the best of our
knowledge !!
We now have to focus on preparing for HOYS as best we can and fund raising for the
significant cost involved. Thank you to everyone for your fantastic contributions and
support and well done to Lisa for her training and all our terrific riders and ponies.