Carriage Drivers from Across the South East Battle it out in Multi-Disciplined Qualifier

Carriage drivers from the Riding for the Disabled’s South East Region endured the drizzle at Sands Farm, Warnham last Tuesday (28th September) in the annual qualifying competition for the RDA National Championship in 2017. Drivers from across Surrey, Sussex and Kent went head-to-head in the three combined disciplines of dressage, cones and obstacles. Only the top two places in the Open, Intermediate and Novice qualified.

The Carriage Driving Groups represented included East Sussex’s Heron’s Ghyll (Whitesmith) and Kipling County (Chalvington), West Sussex’s Happy Landings from Horsham and Cherry Park, Chichester and Stella Hancock’s group from Worplesdon, Surrey.

In a change to the format, all competitors completed the dressage element before undertaking the cones and obstacles in the same arena, one after the other, in an action-packed finale. Greg Cooper, driving Buttons from Heron’s Ghyll was a worthy winner of the Assisted Whip Novice. In the Novice Whip, Barbara Westbury, driving Jimmy from Cherry Park, led from the start to pip last year’s winner, Amanda Hardy from Happy Landings into second place an exciting finish that saw just a point to separate them. In the Intermediate, Sally Jones was a decisive winner driving Misty from Happy Landings, with Karen Tritton hot on her hooves from Heron’s Ghyll driving Buttons.

Joanne McNicoll of Kipling County won a hat-trick, winning the Open class for a third year in a row from Tracey Spencer of Heron’s Ghyll,, comfortably leading all the way in each discipline.

Julia Hockin from Regional Sponsors, Cowan Architects, presented the awards. She was impressed by the speed and agility needed from the carriage drivers in the three disciplines. “This has been really inspirational to see the skill and dexterity required from these incredible drivers. I’ve been amazed today” she commented at the end of the day. Cowan Architects have just been awarded the national honour of RDA Business Partner of the Year.

The Chair of the RDA South East Region, Lindsay Correa gave thanks to the hard work of the team behind the scenes in putting the event together saying “I take a lot of pride in the events that we offer to our regional members and the team work hard to make them happen. We’re also very grateful to our wonderful judges led by Sara Howe, who herself has only just returned from training the GB team at the European Youth Championship in Schildau, Germany”