Hi Pony Clubbers,

Tour 2006 has been phenomenally successfull !!

Milton Keynes - Sat/Sun 12/13 August - UK Regional Tetrathlon Championships
hosted and organised superbly by Central England Region at the Milton Keynes Eventing Centre. The Scottish Girls Team was Heather Ridland (Eglinton), Caitlin Stokes (West Perth), Freya Prentice (Aberdeen), Kirsty Liddon (Dumfrieshire) and Alix Wilcox (P&Tweedale). The cross country stage on Sunday was over a BE Novice track - technical and full up. The Girls competed well with Heather and April went clear overthe xcountry and the team was narrowlly pipped into third place. Heather was placed 4th as an individual.

Lorry troubles meant that we had to call on the services of the local mechanic - guess what his daughter is in the current Oakley Hunt West Team that we will meet at HOYS this year - what a coincidence!

Hartpury - Mon to Sun 14 to 20 August. We were allowed early access to the National Championships site at Hartpury. What a venue - 3DE and country fair on 12/13 Aug has established Hartpury as one of the premier CCI courses in the UK with classes for one, two and three star. Olympic size outdoor arena still had the BE jumps from the weekend,which allowed some training over first class facilities. An Olympic indoor arean is under contstruction for the European Dressage Championships next year and no doubt with an Eye to 2012. "Monarch" indoor stables (of which there are 250) provided luxury accomodation for April.

National Tetrathlon Championships - Hartpury - Fri to Sun 18 to 20 August.
Heather had an indifferent start with an average shoot of 860 points and loosing her goggles in the pool, which cost about 5 metres and robbed her of a PB 9 lenghts (in 3 minutes). Lying about 30th at this stage - we had hoped for better.

Saturday was cross country day and Heather was on 2nd. The weather was fair and ground conditions wre good, even so the word on the steet was that the xc had been decisive in the one star the previous weekend. Two sunken road fences, one with a skinny hidden just round the tree. An abc combination with a step up to a drawbridge and three strides round 90 degrees to a corner. Three part water with a skinny exit and offset houses where the direct route meant taking them at a 45 degree angle. Plus plenty in between.
There were just 29 clear rounds out of a class of 107 and Heather's clear lifted her to 7th place overall going into the final phase - Running on Sunday.

The picture shows Freddy Rider (Deeside), Siobhan Prise (Aberdeen), Freya Prentice (Aberdeen) and Jay sutherland (West Perth) getting in some serious training for Sunday.

A PB of 5 minutes 29 secs for a 1500 metre XC run on Sunday gave Heather her silver award and 3rd place overall - fantastic.

Sansaw - Mon to Wed Aug 21 to 23.
We had little time to draw breath let alone celebrate before we were on the road to Sansaw. Monday was the Intermediate ODE with Heather on April, Claire Geddes (Ari G), Kate Ellison (Bosely) and Ashleigh Brown (Lipton). Claire and Kate were double clear, Heather was clear in the sj but has an understandable if unexpeted whoopsie in the xc - 20 faults.Ashleigh has just 4 faults in the sj. Kaye was =4th in her arena and clair 8th. This gave us team penalties of 136 and 7th place out of 22 teams - awards down to 10th and more celebrations.

Monday was also Individual Open Show Jumping with Sophie Harvey and Jayne Geddes both completing their two rounds although not placed.

Tuesday was Team Open Show Jumping. Huge and Technical - tripple with a upright to follow - water tray - height and spreads full up and scarey. Our team was Sophie Harvey (Minsky), Jayne Geddes (Chevy), Susie Simister (Cavalier Connecton) and Kate Ellison (Bosely). At this level it is creditable just to get round and all our riders did but with one pole outside the "tickets" ending up 11th out of 22 teams. More a sigh of relief
than celebrations but you have to be there to see what these riders achieved. The jumps were huge.

Particular thanks to Trish Harvey for her help with preparing the ODE and Open teams.

Wednesday was Team Intermediate Show Jumping and Heather, Claire and Ashleigh were joined by Megan McNutt on Freya.

I must admit at this stage to feeling a bit worn out and I wondered if April felt the same.

In we went for our first round. Heather and Claire were clear, Ashleigh had just 4 faults and Megan was understandably nervose and had a few down - team score just 4 faults - 5th place.

In the second round each team member jumps with the equivalent members from the other teams. Heather and Claire went clear and Ashleigh had 4 down so we are sitting on 20 faults - 4th equal at this stage. Megan took centre stage and with just three down we ended up with a team score of 12 for the round and 16 for the competition - taking 3rd place and beating Fife into 4th - the podium and more celebrations. Again at this level just to see all members complete their rounds is a fantactic achievement and to be place - almost hard to convey what a team performance this was.

The lorry held out and we arrived home at 1.30am on 24th August just 15 hours short of 14 days after we left - what an adventure.

By the way Atherstone won the games championship with just 43 points and will be at HOYS. In a nail biting final race any of the top three teams could have qualified but they all missed the final leaving Atherstone to win by default. No team stood out and Orkney were 3rd - so watch out for them next year.

Yours a weary Gordon, Margaret, Heather and April