FOR the third month in succession, the Guernsey Dressage Group experienced record-breaking entries for their April weekend event at Chemin Le Roi. With over 150 tests completed over the two days, the Martin Collins arena was in constant use with them being performed from early morning till almost dusk and UK judges Jane Lavington and Jane Stevens deciding their winners for a variety of local and national qualifying classes, including the finalists for the SEIB Trailblazer series at Stoneleigh in August.
The national affiliated qualifying tests for the Hickstead Dressage Masters Channel Islands semi-final to be held at Chemin Le Roi in June were hotly contested and on day one produced success for Jodie Travers, who at the age of 13 was the youngest competitor so far taking part in the CI series.
Riding her JA pony Robins Woodlands Rossini, she produced a qualifying score of 66.20 per cent at Novice level and placed equal first with Sian Staples on Ultimo, who also goes through to the semi-final.
The result will also qualify both riders for the BD national regional finals taking place in the UK later in the summer.
Others achieving qualification for the Hickstead novice semi-finals were Maxime Whalley, riding Essentially Diniall, and Nicky Lambourne on Master Connaught, who was the only rider to get qualifying scores at both novice and elementary level at their first attempt.
Day two produced qualification for Terry Lihou and Onfire in the BDQ novice open and for Michelle Robilliard and Ad Lib in the BDQ novice restricted qualifying classes.
Christine Palmer travelled Chopin V from Jersey to take part in the Hickstead Masters series and they achieved better results on day two to clinch their qualification for the elementary semi-final.
George Farnon and Furieux II were the only contestants to take part in the medium tests at affiliated level and comfortably achieved the qualifying score for the Masters semi-final with their result, finishing on 64.83.
Only two riders managed to break the 70 barrier over the two days.
Sue Fearis and Tenor achieved the highest percentage of the show with 74.58 in the prelim 17 class which was followed the next day by sister Debbie Sauvarin and The Spook who scored 73.00 in the prelim 16.
The feature classes of the weekend were the SEIB Trailblazer second-round regional final classes at prelim, novice and elementary.
They produced the 12 horse-and-rider combinations from the CI that have qualified to take part in the Trailblazer Dressage finals.
Junior Shelley Tostevin and Lockinge Daisy will contest them at each of the three levels and Crystal Simon and Mistic Dawn will travel for the prelim and novice.
In the senior classes, Fearis and Tenor continued their run of success to take the prelim regional final class on a score of 71.25 and she will be joined at the finals by husband Rob riding Minervois.
Michelle Robilliard and Ad Lib won both the senior novice and elementary regional classes with Sarah Arblaster and King de Riverland and Pattie Anderson and Sir Sandro 006 also qualifying for the finals at each of these levels.
Organiser Jill Browning described the weekend as both successful and very exciting for the future of the sport.
‘We now have some really lovely quality horses taking part in the sport that should perform very well against their peer groups in the UK,’ she said.
Article posted on 24th May, 2007 - 12.00am
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