Area and Regional Eventing Qualifiers 2025

On the 12th and 13th July 2025 11 of our members ventured off to Isleham for the eventing qualifiers for Grassroots and Area Eventing kindly hosted by Soham District Pony Club.

It was forecast to be really hot but thankfully we had a little cloud cover to keep most of the sun baking us all. The day started early for our first member Annabelle Pallister and a little bit later for Daisy Cave who were both in the 80cm Grassroots qualifier. They both rode two nice tests followed by two lovely showjumping rounds, with both completing the cross country. They competed as part of a mixed team achieving an overall placing of 5th and qualifying them both for the grassroots championships. Daisy had an individual placing of 10th and best dressage in her section.

For the 70cm grassroot qualifiers we had Skyla Noel and Tatiana Hotham competing. This was Skyla’s first time representing the Branch and although she wasn’t placed on this occasion we hope she had a great time. Tatiana finished individually 7th in her section which qualified her for the Grassroots Championships.

This year we had two Novice Teams for the Area 90cm qualifier. The Essex and Suffolk Blue Team was made up of all boys – Harry Tier, Zac Cave and Matthew Caley and with only 3 members and no room for a dropped score the pressure was on but the boys did great with Harry finishing individually 10th, Zac finishing on his dressage score to finish individually 4th and the team of 3 achieving a team qualification for the National Championships of 4th.

Our second Novice team – Essex and Suffolk Red Team consisting ofEmilia Rivett, Sophie Feeney, Isabelle Rivett and Maisie Lowe all did lovely dressage tests with Maisie winning best dressage, Emilia finishing 9th individually, Sophie 6th individually. Great show jumping and cross country performances resulted in a team placing of 5th qualifying them for the National Championships as well. So 2 Novice Teams off to the National Championships – well done everyone !!

A big thank you to Sally Merrett, Gill Baker and Mia Rush for cross country jump judging for the day and to Nicky Bennett for the write up.