What a start, the notification of who officially had qualified came out late, only 1 day before the entries had to be in for Lincoln! A rather hurried cheque writing and completing all the forms with all the information and posting off to British Riding Clubs, made us all a little jittery this year. Not to mention that we had already sent off the Rural Riders entry and our stabling requirements for the weekend!

Then Dawn phoned to say the times were posted on the web site for the Rural Riders only to see nothing on there for us! Friday afternoon at 4pm, the office was closed and there was no one to talk to about what we had just seen! We both agreed to keep stum and not let the rest of the team know until we were certain it would be OK!! On a fit of panic I called the stable manager to check he had us down for the stabling, only to find that he too, had nothing for us. Monday morning, a call into the British Riding Clubs to find that they had lost all the sheets, but no problem they would fit us in, phew panic over!

By now we are all in preparation mode, the final details being sorted out for the weekend. Those travelling together had arranged times and we were all ready to go. For those that have never been lucky enough to go to Lincoln the journey is quite long normally around 5 hours. Unfortunately for all of us this year due to closures on M3, accidents on A34 and heavy traffic it took nearly all of us around 6-6.5 hours travelling, some very tired ponies and people on Friday night. After arriving ponies sorted out and settled into their stables for the night, tents erected, sleeping arrangements sorted, oven on for pasta and lasagne nicely heating up, we started to tell them all about the lead up to the weekend. Early night for everyone after checking the ponies were OK, to be fresh for the competition the next day.

First on was Sally Anne followed by most of the team in succession. Rural Riders at 11.20 meaning that Mandy had to change her individual time for the Riding Test.

This year they moved the arena for the RR this year into the presentation area, which meant that more people were watching as we competed, last to go. We really did look good, and gained a round of applause from the people watching a very unexpected but welcome response for us all.

We won the Rural Riders with a clear 27 points, and the riders in their riding order were:
Mandy Pidgely (lead) LONG COPSE ELTON S39/206
Martine Reeves FARRIERS FIRELIGHT M37/126
Helen Campbell FARRIERS FOXGLOVE G36/047
Charlotte Manning FARRIERS FINGER PRINT S39/055
Sally Anne Pearson CHESTER II G36/057
Dawn Vear KILNCOPSE FLY-BY-NIGHT S39/128(G)

We made one change to our line up after the breed show, a very big hearted Vicky Palmer pulled herself out of the team and was replaced by Sally Anne, as her pony misbehaved at the breed show and she didn't want to let the rest of the team down. A big sacrifice after practising month after month, thank you Vicky from us all, you were as much a winner as the rest of us!!

The final results:
1st NFPEC 503 points
2nd Northern DG 476 points
3rd Rugby 471 points
4th Solihull 464 points

We aim to go back next year so anyone that is interested in taking part will need to put their names down at the beginning of the year. This is not for the feint hearted takes a lot of hard work and commitment, you must be working at high Novice and or Elemetary.

Our Riding Test Team made a good effort once again coming 8th out of 32 teams:
1st Rugby 9 points
2nd Elstead 12 points
3rd E.Yorkshire 13 points
4th Findon 15 points
5th Mid Somerset 17 points
6th Holsworthy 18 points
7th Chalfont Heights 18 points
8th NFPEC 20 points

Once again a very successful year for the Dressage Teams again, well done everyone.
Sarah Green