It has been a busy half term for the Equestrian team, some of whom have barely had a day off since the start of term! Having been out
successfully competing most weekends they are now counting down to the four day National Championship competition at Addington Manor that takes place over the first weekend of half term. In total 18 riders will be representing Cranleigh across the three disciplines of dressage, show jumping and arena eventing following their success at regional qualifying events that have been taking place since February.
This term the dressage teams stole the show at the south east qualifier with first and second places securing our two places at the Championships. This was followed by success for our youngest riders at the regional qualifier that we run at Merrist Wood in Guildford. Victory in the mini arena eventing for Freddy Moore clinched an individual qualification for
him and our teams finished in first and second place (Freddy; Tiger Tang; Jess Edwards; Olivia Barker; Issy Hollidge; Jack Delliere; Kristi Vitek and Millie Harrison). A second place in the novice competition for Freddy, Jess, Tiger and Sienna Sartori finished a good morning’s work before the arena was changed to show jumping and our mini riders took second and third places.
At Mayfield School’s Arena Eventing competition we won both the novice and the intermediate competitions and Josh Moore continued his string of successes for the School by taking individual qualifications in the Open
and Advanced classes. He also took second spot in both the Prelim and Novice dressage classes.
In addition to qualifying for the National Championships some of less experienced riders have qualified for the National Plate Final in December and last weekend we competed in the first of the Eventers Challenge qualifiers for the Hickstead final next year. We took victory in the mini competition, as well as 1st and 2nd individually (Will Millard and Tilly Hogan) and clinched a qualification in the novice section where our teams finished in 2nd, 3rd and 6th. Our intermediates took a fifth place whilst Josh Moore qualified individually in the open.
We wish our riders the best of luck at Addington next week.
Chris Allison
Head of Riding
