Offchurch Report
By Sally McCarthy

Our team qualified for the British Riding Clubs National Horse Trials Championships in Offchurch when we won the novice qualifier at Kirriemuir. The team consisted of Alice Ratcliffe (Wilson IV), Jill Angus (Katouche Bay), Karen Wilson (Fussy O'Neil) and myself (Sally McCarthy and Miros Arc). We were keen to go down to Offchurch as it was a two day event and we were all keen to have a go at the roads and tracks and steeplechase elements. It was a shame as Karen couldn't manage to make the trip down due to work commitments, but Lea Gray and Tiger Feet agreed to step in as reserves. Unluckily, Tiger then went off work the week before the championships, so we headed south as a team of three as there wasn't another reserve.

We travelled down on Thursday 7th August to Carlisle, where we stabled the horses overnight with Ronnie Mowbray before heading down to Warwickshire on Friday 8th. The horses coped really well with the journey and arrived at the other end with a spring in their step - mine had a bit too much spring in its step and spent the first thirty minutes in the temporary stabling bucking and squealing until another riding club member came and gave me a row for putting a stallion in the stabling block! He did settle eventually though...

We rode around the roads and tracks route on the Friday night to learn it, then settled down for some important team building wine that night. Poor Jill was exhausted as her horse thoroughly enjoyed the roads and tracks and spend the whole time jogging and trying to go much faster than he was meant to!

Saturday dawned overcast and before any of us had started our dressage the torrential rain began. The rain just didn't stop, but by the end of dressage we had a good team score with Alice and Wilson on 31.8, and Jill and I on 34.7. Our horses did really well in the rain, particularly Jill's, who had to contend with the local hunt going past mid test!

The showjumping that afternoon was a lovely built course, with lots for the horses to look at, but a fair test. It was getting quite slippy due to the rain and we didn't warm up much as the ground in the practice arena was pretty muddy and cut up due to the number of horses that had used it in the rain. We were really pleased after showjumping as Jill and I had a clear each and Alice had one pole down so we still had a good team score. The competition was very impressive, particularly from some southern teams, one member of which had managed to post a dressage score of 20, which was incredible.

Cross country day dawned even wetter, and by the time Wilson set out first on Phase A, we were all completely drenched. Wilson stormed round all four phases and Alice was delighted with him. We were amazed to hear at the end that he had been eliminated, but I must take a lot of the blame here! There was a fairly tough corner on the course, which had an alternative and I had planned to take the alternative as my horse is green, while Alice and Jill were happy with the corner as their horses had jumped corners before. I had walked the alternative on the Saturday night and was happy with my route and told Alice and Jill my intentions. Wilson jumped so well on the cross country that Alice decided to give him an easier fence at the corner so she jumped the alternative that I had walked, and this was where she was eliminated - apparently there were two parts to jump, which none of us had managed to notice!

She managed to get this information to me in the ten minute box, so I was able to change my mind and jump the corner instead of the alternative (which we were now all confused by) so I was delighted when Miro went clear with a few time penalties. Jill was last to go and had a great round which she was pleased with to pick up two stops on the cross country, both at the more difficult fences, an angled double consisting of an upright to a narrow brush corner, and the coffin, which is an incredible achievement for someone who only started eventing last year! At the end of the cross country day, we were all delighted with our horses and felt we had all learnt a huge amount from such an experience. It's also always good to get home safe and sound when the weather is so bad it makes everything slippy.

We left for Carlisle that night, and then made the final bit of the journey up to Aberdeen on the Monday (which involved a lengthy delay for Alice and I when her lorry broke down on the M74 and we all had to be rescued, including the horses!).

Offchurch was a fabulous experience for all of us. It was well organised, the course was lovely, although testing and the organisers and ground staff worked incredibly hard during unbelievably wet weather to make sure that the competition could still go ahead and that all horses and riders were as safe as possible. Our team had a great attitude as we were all keen to have fun and support each other and this was helped by NERC's fun attitude to it.

We'd all like to thank NERC for allowing us to take part in this and paying our entry fees - we'd certainly advise anyone else who is considering doing teams next year to get their names down for them, it's a great experience for all the horses and riders and the standard of competition at Offchurch makes it very worthwhile going down to it. We'd also like to thank Kirsty Smart and Christine Bell who came down with us to help - you certainly need a hand when there are roads and tracks and things to be done as well and they made the weekend much easier.