West Surrey Riding Club had a fantastic day in the sunshine at the London and South East Championships. It was lovely to see our 3 teams beautifully turned out, riding really well and most of all, smiling and having lots of fun.

Horse Trials:
Well done to the WSRC Horse Trials team who achieved an amazing 5th place in the final at Munstead Show Ground. Tina Pendle, Lauren Louise Spinks, Tanya Creaye-Griffin and Susan McKenzie. Everyone rode brilliantly, with double clears from our two smallest and oldest ponies, Tom and Thunder. Thank you to Susan and Bruno for stepping in at the last minute and great to see Lauren and Drum back out competing for the club.

Dressage:
There were 18 teams from all over the South East so we had good competition! For the first time in years WSRC had a Riding Test team qualify armed with some training under our belt and with two new team members. The team smiled, rode accurately and came away with a 6th place rosette! Congratulations to Tina Pendle, Rebecca Attridge, Lizzy Crossan and Caitlin Fahy who came 3rd over all! Well done everyone for working through the haze of what a Riding Test actually is!!

Our prelim team were up next.  Well done to Vikki Chuter, Judith Dunne, Lisa Vanoli and Caitlin Fahy placing 10th as a team. Lisa also came 7th in her arena so plenty more to come from this combination!! Caitlin stole the show with a stunning performance winning the class and helping the team to come 10th!

Thank you
A huge thank you goes out to our many helpers, for giving up your time to help on the day so our members could compete. Thank you to Christopher Lee who must have walked miles in order to photograph as many of our riders as possible. A big thank you to Julie Johnson and Claire Stratford for all your hard work organising the Dressage and Horse Trials teams.

 Vikki and Beauty are in the South East Rider magazine talking about their progress together and how wonderful and supportive our riding club 'West Surrey' are. What a fab pair they are!

Thank you to Claire and Julie for running assisted clear round show jumping at Mayor House Farm for our members. It was a wonderful experience for all involved, our members really appreciated the time and encouragement given to them. The facilities at Mayor House Farm are fabulous. Look out for our next event there!

Helen Kendall has kindly sponsored a trophy to be awarded to a WSRC member over 59 with the most points. The trophy is named after Helen's special horse Tom.

Helen's story...  "I bought Tom when I was 59 and started to compete, for the first time in my life on own horse at 60 . He's hardly ever been unplaced up to Elementary dressage. So if a little horse found on an allotment on sink estate in northern city can give an OAP so much fun for ten years of competing, I want to encourage others to do the same!!"

WSRC ran their annual Open Dressage Show at Merrist Wood Arena on Friday. A massive thank you goes to Sarah Fisher and her team of helpers for very well organised event which was really fun and enjoyable for everyone. 

We are very grateful to our event sponsors. Liphook Equine Hospital, sponsored the prizes for all of the individual winners. Icon Sportswear, kindly gave base layers to the winning team (Elstead). Nicola Elliot Photography, very generously awarded a photo shoot to the highest percentatge of the day (Alison Warne, Ruby). Our winners were delighted with the fabulous range of prizes provided by our generous sponsors, smiles all round!