Area 5 – Minimus Home International Tetrathlon Championship – 27/28 June ’26

The Minimus Home International Tetrathlon took place on the 27th and 28th of June at Breckonborough in North Yorkshire. There were teams from England (8), Ireland (4), Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The run, shoot and ride phases were all at Breckonborough whilst the swim was held at Catterick.

Wales and Borders had two teams –

The Red team competitors:

• Catrin Morgan -Flint & Denbigh
• Zoe James- Flint & Denbigh
• Amber Kinsey -Cheshire Hunt South
• Ben Francis- Wynnstay
• Georgie Blythe- Glamorgan Hunt

The Green team competitors:

• Florence Evans – Wynnstay
• Harri Sherlock -Wynnstay
• Megan Evans – Flint & Denbigh
• Carys Dehareng- Currie Hunt

The Red Wales and Borders team came in 5th place (beaten by 4 Irish teams) and our Green team came 12th.

Individually Ben Francis achieved 4th place in the Boy’s competition and Zoe James 10th in the girl’s competition.

All of the following shot 900 or over:

• Florence,
• Harri,
• Megan,
• Carys ,
• Georgie while both
• Catrin and Ben each achieved a score of 960.

Amber ,Harri, Zoe and Ben all ran under 4 minutes with Zoe achieving a 3.27 minute run (2nd fastest girl)  and Ben 3.21 minutes.

In the swim both Megan and Catrin swam 5 lengths 10 metres in the 2 minutes, Harri and Zoe 5 lengths 12 metres and Ben 5 lengths 17 metres.

There was also a Minimus Triathlon competition taking place where Joseff James from Flint and Denbigh came in 10th place.

8 boys took part in a Junior Tetrathlon and Charlie Stockton – Wynnstay came 4th.

Cross Country

The course was 80cm BE Intermediate difficulty.  It was difficult to see where the 80 cm part of some of the fences was. They looked huge.  Very challenging – even fence No 1  caused problems. Little Harri was disappointed not to get past it!  It was probably the only fence not to have an L alternative. A number of other competitors had a stop there too.

The course had everything – drops, a double of offset corners, 2 waters, coffin and lots of skinnies.  There was a double of offset half trimmed hedges which actually rode well if ridden correctly, but they did cause problems. There was a similar hedge in the middle of the water ! Fence 14 was easily missed out. A course like this needs walking 3 times. There was an L for every fence which is great as every competitor is then able to complete if they make those quick decisions.  Combinations had one L fence for all parts of the fence.

On the whole Area 5 did really well as some are very young minis.

Only about 7 girls achieved 1400 out of 51. Just 5 boys achieved 1400 out of 32.  This gives you some idea of the difficulty of the course.

The best rides from Area 5 were Zoe James (1270 Flint & Denbigh) who had a stop at the double offset hedges (No 11) and then did the L.  Well done Zoe. Ben Francis (Wynnstay) also achieved 1270. Catrin Morgan (FnD) had a good round achieving 1110 points but the course was just too much for Amber Kinsey ChHS and little Harri Sherlock(Wynnstay) but it will be an experience for both of them.

A note about the run – Zoe was 1 sec off the fastest run but they added 30 seconds to the girl who actually had the fastest run of 3.20 because her mother was seen running alongside her. So she ended up on 3.50.  Be warned.

The whole competition was very well organised. The party on the Saturday evening had a Circus theme and great fun was had by all.  There were Area 5 zebras riding BMX bikes and younger siblings causing chaos dressed as animals with Bubble guns.  Apparently, Catrin went to school the next day with the Welsh dragons painted on each cheek !