Manchester equestrians gallop to glory

The University of Manchester Equestrian Club has won the final leg of the Championship league on the 20^th February , and while they have just missed out on qualifying a team for regionals, Abbi England won the day overall and will progress individually.

There was tense competition throughout the day with all three teams pulling out all the stops to try to claim those red rosettes and the qualifying spots. In the dressage phase, each team has one member ride each of the three horses, and the best score on each horse wins, with the differences between the riders’ scores deciding the placings.

The day started disappointingly for Manchester as our first rider, highly professional Emilie Larson struggled to keep her horse, Conner, going forwards without losing rhythm, getting pipped by Bangor rider, Emily Cox, who kept him chilled and relaxed to score the highest marks, while on the second horse, Blaze, the tension got to the horse. Meanwhile Rachel Scales from Chester managed to coax him into relaxing and floating round the arena. It was not a comfortable moment for the Manchester team.

However, both our final two riders rode spectacularly to win on their horses by considerable margins. On Jerry, a very tidy and accurate ride from Christina Rud had the horse looking relaxed, happy and with great impulsion. While Abbi England was the only rider to keep the deceptively pretty Dream from misbehaving in the ring.

After dressage Manchester was sitting on a score of 38, being beaten by Chester who had scored a total of 32. Bangor was trailing behind on a score of 78. The pressure was on as Manchester did not want to lose on home ground.

A very fast turnover ensued, with the dressage arena being demolished and a jumping course being erected in record time. The jumping phase runs very similarly to the dressage, with each team having a rider ride each of the four horses over a course of fences. They get scored on their style and get penalties for knocking poles or refusing fences.

The first Manchester rider, Jordan Edwards, rode Tegan, and despite jumping a clear round didn’t manage to beat a very tidy round from Bangor rider Rachel Lok.  Things started looking up when the second Manchester rider, Christina Rud, came in on a very enthusiastic Lilly to jump a beautiful clear round to win on her.

In a dramatic moment, the Bangor rider on Lilly, Sarah Murray, was nearly popped out of the saddle after letting her get a bit too fast. A gymnastic save from the rider ensued to keep her in the saddle.

The ever professional Emilie Larson did a great job to keep her composure on the very tiny pony Dougal, riding an accurate clear round, but Bangor rider, Emily Cox pulled a beautiful round out of the bag to pip her to first place on him.

Our final rider was once again Abbi England, riding the smallest pony of the day, Charlie. While he knocked the set of planks for every rider, Abbi’s sympathetic ride managed to leave every other fence up, a feat none of the other teams could match.

It was a tense wait for the final scores to be counted up, as everyone knew this was going to be a close one.  Indeed, it was so close that both Abbi England and Christina Rud ended up on equal perfect scores, and had to be separated by their collective marks to determine who won the blue or red ribbon. The collective mark reflects the rider’s performance regardless of the horse they were riding.  In the end Abbi just cinched it with a collective mark of 176 compared to Christina’s 170.

Just as the fantastic winning results were being announced in Manchester, a call came in from our Development Team who had been competing in friendly league in Chester had matched the A team by taking the two top spots with Alex Smith winning individually and Tamarind Stanley coming second as well as Charlotte Palmer coming 6^th.  These results gave Equestrian plenty to celebrate in typical AU style with 80s outfits and big hair the order of the evening.

UMEC would like to give a big thank you to everyone who helped make the day possible. It could not have happened without the committee and club members who turned out at 8am to get the horses cleaned and prepared, kept the day running on the very tight schedule and managed to get the scoring done swiftly. We’d also like to thank our sponsors Alltech and RBS who keep us performing at our very best and to the yard, John Shaw Equestrian, who let us host our competition and use their horses.

Team placings : 1^st Manchester – 90, 2^nd  Chester   – 98, 3^rd Bangor – 128.

Individual placings: 1^st Abbi England (Manchester) – 0, 2^nd Christina Rud (Manchester)– 0, 3^rd Rachel Scales (Chester) – 9, 4^th Emily Cox (Bangor) – 12, 5^th Any Gibson (Chester) – 17, 6^th Rachel Lok (Bangor) – 21, 7^th Emilie Larson (Manchester) – 30, 8^th Stacey Minchella (Chester) – 34.