On a beautifully sunny day, in the flattest, perfectly mown field, Flint and Denbigh seniors and juniors set about their quest to go through to Championships in the Prince Philip Cup competition.
Starting with the seniors in the morning, they were in a particularly tough zone against the top teams in the country, many of whom had previously competed at HOYS. After a slightly rocky start, the team of Suzi Williams, Anya Dreiling, Nan Jones, Wednesday Rytter and Becky Sedcole settled into their game and rode some consistent races. They missed out on some finals by literally inches, but got safely through to enough finals to steadily start climbing up the leader board. Sitting in 9th place at one point caused their fans a little consternation as only the teams placed 2nd to 9th qualified and it would be so easy to slip down the board.
But this team had made up their minds at the beginning of the season that they wanted to go to Champs and held HOYS as their dream, so the killer instinct kicked in and they started fighting for their place. They began to steadily climb up and the watchers breathed again as they ended up in a comfortable 6th place, convincingly qualifying as the best placed Flint and Denbigh team ever!
The juniors had a lot to live up to, but they did not disappoint. Their ponies literally flew down the field and they secured every single final with a display of excellent horsemanship at such a young age. For most of the session the team of Eden and Sophie Greaves, Lottie Williams, Tomos Williams and Megan Woodcock sat in 2nd place, causing near heart attacks of excitement from proud grandparents and only dropped to 3rd place at the last moment. The overall result was the same though; the juniors were joining their big sisters at Championships!
We are very proud to have two such good teams this season and a special thank you to Gwil Hughes and Arwyn Roberts for their dedicated training – keep it up teams and HOYS here we come!!
