Small club packs a big punch to take out Top Teams trophy
GEROGERY Riding Club north of Albury in NSW describes itself as a small group "with just few members who like to get out and about to compete in numerous disciplines at various levels”.
Well, they might be small and a fair old distance from the Woodlands grounds at Bulla where the HRCAV Top Teams horse trials were held at the weekend, but their riders Regina Knobel, Tania Harding, Liz Koschitzke and Eloise Cluning showed the opposition a clean pair of heels to take home the annual trophy.
Their team – named Two Talls and a Short – were clear winners but second place presented a real task for the scorers.
The Kangaroo Ground team of Madeleine Manton, Sue McLennan, Jess Francis and Arty Brennan riding under the banner of Kg Girth Control finished with exactly the same scores as the Lancefield LEG-less team of Ashlee Whitworth, Alison Brereton, Adriana Boyle and Ross Brosnan.
There are several methods of breaking an equal score deadlock, but after applying all of them, the teams were amazingly still equal, so equal second it was.
Georgina Birrell’s Terminal Velocity took out the level one section for Mt Duneed Adult Riding Club and in a well-filled level two class, Ethan Height and Charcoal Park Aureo stayed on their dressage score to win.
The lower levels are always divided due to high numbers and in level three the two winners were Tania Harding on The Rookie and Andrew Henneken’s Windermere Franklin.
Level four was even larger with three divisions, taken out by Ashlee Whitworth riding Zoffman, Madeleine Manton’s Wyann Mercedes and Regina Knobel riding Hillview Park Denman Keikari.
The level five section was won by Annika Collins’ Lilybrook Picolo.
The Thoroughbred and Standardbred industries are always very supportive of gaining recognition for their ex racing horses, with awards made in each section.
The Hero awards for Standardbreds went to Steph Gibson’s Scout'n About competing under his race name and Alison Maclaren’s Yoshi Dynamite for an unnamed Standie.
There were a large number of Thoroughbred off-the-track horses competing, with the awards going to Danni McKeon’s Understudy, who raced as Verchal, Kirsten Krough’s Sunday Afternoon (racing name), Tania Hardin’s The Rookie, who raced as Sunday Best, Ashlee Whitworth’s Zoffman (racing name) and Christie Stockdale’s Tales of War (racing name).
The HRCAV calendar is packed over the next couple of months with events including winter woollies shows, navigation rides, combined training, dressage and more Top Teams events.
The next Top Teams competitions will be the Three Phase Equitation event in the Ovens Valley at Oxley in August and the Showjumping Top Teams at Mansfield in October.
Stories on The Regional’s website are free to read and always will be.
If you enjoyed this article you can show your support by joining our mailing list (either by filling out the form below or sending us a message).
We'd also get very excited if you put a "like" on our Facebook page.
Comments