News | 7 March 2025
Spring Festival Finals
Last weekend saw some of our Flamstead members head to Addington in the sunshine for the Spring Festival Final. This is the winter version of Pony Club Championships, where the competitors have all qualified by having a top placing at the Area competitions and then come together to compete against all the other winners across the UK, so the standard is extremely high.
We then had Maya Thon, who qualified for the 1m class with her lovely horse Kadier. She jumped a foot perfect first round, making the course look easy. There were 29/74 clear, so she had to go for it in the jump off if she was to pick up a placing. They jumped a super round, but sadly just clipped a pole, leaving her on 4 faults and unfortunately out of the placings.
Next up it was the turn of our 1.10m team, consisting of Josie Reid, Olivia Fisher and Maya Thon. They ran a new format this year, with 3 in a team with 3 scores to count. In the past it has always been 4 in a team with 3 scores to count, giving a discard score if one round didn’t go so well. This meant the pressure was really on as all 3 girls had to produce good scores to be in with a chance of a team placing. A few of the teams were unable to manage this, with lots of faults and retirements and eliminations.
Josie was first to go for our team and jumped a lovely round, just rolling one pole when Beano got a little close to a big oxer, picking up 4 faults. Next it was Maya’s turn. She again jumped a lovely round, just having one pole down, also for 4 faults. Olivia was last to go in the team. Moose had been rather sharp in the warm up arena, not enjoying the busy environment, with lots of horses jumping big fences in a small arena, so went into the ring a little tense. He settled well and jumped a super round, touching 2 fences for 8 faults. This left the team on 16 faults which was good enough for 2nd place, a fantastic result, the 2nd best 1.10m team in the country!
On the Sunday we headed back to Addington for the Dressage and Arena Eventing. Sienna had a very early draw in the Grassroots Dressage with her lovely grey pony Coolooney Gurteen, and did her test before some people would have been awake! He warmed up outside beautifully, but then didn’t like having to go up to the indoor arena on his own and was a little bit tense in his test. They scored 69.80% for 6th place.
Next up it was the turn of Megan Johnson in the Novice Championships with her lovely ride Despereaux. They produced a super fluent test for score 69.79% which was good enough for 4th place.
In the Intermediate Championships we had team qualified, again 3 riders with 3 scores to count. Josie Reid rode a lovely test, managing to keep Beano focused with the exciting Arena Eventing happening in the arena next door, which I’m sure Beano and Josie would far rather have been doing! They scored 64%. Megan’s horse wasn’t quite as settled in this arena as he had been for the Novice test, scoring 61%. Maisie was last to go for the team, right at the end of the day, by which time the class was running an hour behind, and Norman had been warming up for a long time, and was doing his test almost in the dark. They produced a pleasing test for a score of 67.67%, and 9th place. The team finished a fantastic 3rd place.
In the Arena Eventing, we qualified a 70cm team of Sienna Scriven, Zoe Hooper and Violet Grimston. The Arena Eventing course consisted of 8 show jumps, followed by 8 cross country style fences, some of which could be knocked down, all of which were skinny, and placed on clever lines off tight turns, followed by one ‘Bogey’ fence, which was a bigger show jump. The children have to complete the whole course within the optimum time (they aren’t told what it is), and get time faults if they are too fast or too slow! The idea is that they ride in a smooth rhythm around the course travelling at 325 metres per minute.
Sienna’s pony jumped a fantastic round, perfectly timed, just rolling the pole on the skinny cross country fence jumping into the corner of the arena, picking up 4 faults. Zoe also rode a super round, her pony Tom must have watched Sienna’s round as he did exactly the same thing! Zoe is usually a speed demon, so she took some wide turns and was actually a couple of seconds too slow. Violet was last to go for Flamstead. Rolo flew round the show jumps clear, and just had a couple of glance offs at the skinny cross country fences, plus a few time faults. This was good enough for the team to pick up 6th place in a very big class.
We also had Isobel Morton and her flying chestnut Kassius competing at 1m. Isobel was sad to have had to withdraw from the Show Jumping Qualifiers the day before when Kassius cut himself in the field but had already qualified a few weeks before for the Arena Eventing. They jumped a lovely stylish clear over the show jumps, followed by a clear over the cross country fences, clearing all the big brushes by about a foot, causing some quite amusing commentary! The 1m class has a much faster optimum time, as they are expected to travel at 375 metres per minute, which is actually quite fast when in an arena with so many obstacles to jump. They picked up 4.4 time faults which left them in 10th place out of 47 starters.
What a super weekend for our Flamstead riders who did us proud. Thank you to all the supporters and volunteers, it was 2 very long days of competition, thankfully in the sunshine!
Well done all from Georgie & Jules x
