Report from the UK Regional Championship

Heather Ridland was selected to represent the Scottish Pony Club Tetrathlon team at the UK Regional Championship held at Burnham Market, Norfolk on 13 to 15 August 2004.

Heather has been competing at Tetrathlon for 5 years, first as a “mini” (11 and under) and more recently as a “junior” (12 to 14 years old). She has always been placed, first or second and has been head to head with another highly talented junior from Aberdeen – Siobhan Prise. The step up from junior to open is particularly challenging in the riding phase. This spring we felt that Heather was ready and we decided to compete at open over the summer. Heather has been on the Scottish “long list” for a number of years but her performances in the summer open competitions, although she is still a junior, placed her in the top Scottish rankings. Heather’s success also encouraged Siobhan, who is a great friend as well as rival to do likewise. And so we took a very young Scottish team to take on the Irish, Welsh and English Regions. Fortunately we also have one of the UK’s top ranked girls – Louise Helyer (Angus) – who is aiming for a Modern Pentathlon place at the Olympics in 2008..

We suffered a setback in our preparation as April injured herself on the way to Auchinleck HT. We were thinking of withdrawing but a conversation with the Snodgrasses at Auchinleck persuaded us to go with Sisco. We tried him out at Brechin – a full up open course – clear and 1400 points and decided to take him to Norfolk.

The competition runs Friday to Sunday and Margaret and Heather headed of for Norfolk on the Thursday – about a 10 hour drive. The shooting and swimming took place on the Friday and when I arrived on Friday night we were unexpectedly just 40 points behind the leading team. Saturday morning was cross country. Burnham Market is a British Eventing course and the Tetrathlon cross country made use of a combination of Pre Novice and Novice jumps – a challenge, particularly for a 13 hand pony. The great thing about Tetrathlon is that it is a team effort and so the parents and hangers on make up a “barmy army” of support – usually from a strategic vantage point – usually next to the course commentator. The Scottish, Irish and Welsh contingents are a highly vocal and the cheering and encouragement could be heard all over the course. Louise led off – clear as usual, then Nydia, also clear, Heather – clear, Sophie – clear and finally Siobhan on her first ever open round just one refusal. A quick reckoning and we had taken the overall lead – party time (for the parents – team members early to bed).

Sunday morning – cross country running. A difficult course meant that times were generally higher than usual and we were disappointed with ours. However, to our surprise we were still in contention with only one team that could beat us. In the end we were beaten into second place by the narrowest of margins. It just does not get any closer. Each team has 5 members and the final team score is based on the 4 best individual scores. Our score was 16,152 just 8 point. behind the winner – South of England. To put this in perspective this was the equivalent of just 2 seconds on the cross country run of 1,500 metres. The winners were not celebrating very much as they along with everyone else at the competition had probably worked out that our average age was just 15 years and 4 months. In individual terms Louise was 2nd. Siobhan and Heather, the youngest competitors, were placed 13th and 14th. out of a field of about 60.

This is the best that Scotland has managed in a very long time and the Southern Irish, who were taking part in the International competition have already indicated that they would like to bring over a team to take on our girls at the winter triathlon later this year. As I pointed out to James Helyer (jokingly) who is the chairman of Scottish Tetrathlon and the regional team manager this is what happens when Eglinton gets involved.

And so it was a tale of 20 hours (of driving), 8 points, 2 seconds (from victory) and tonnes of fun. A wonderful achievement that I know will inspire our members to get involved in Tetrathlon. Watch this space as this team and these individuals are highly competitive and have great talent.

Gordon Ridland