11 juli 2016

Celebrating the return of Ashfields

Ashfields National Driving Trials made a triumphant come-back to the British Carriagedriving calendar with over 80 starters including many promising newcomers, youngsters and para drivers making strong competition across the classes, especially among those on the selectors’ lists.
 

The dressage judges liked para-driver Deborah Daniel’s performance best, 37.48, and she won the class, just, from Jamie Williams, whose marathon and cones driving was exemplary.
Anna Grayston and Alan Clarke, advanced pony pairs, also scored well, and the marathon phase left little between them. Tara Wilkinson, 19, drove obstacles daringly fast, whittling Alan’s lead from 0.41 penalties at Sandringham to finish just 0.36 penalties behind him after the cones, taking third place. Tara drives Emma Burge’s ponies, formerly seen in front of Roger Campbell. Roger, now based in Germany, is driving a team of sporting greys and gave chase to Sara Howe, winning the marathon, but Sara’s 48.29 dressage and tidier cones result kept her ahead. Roger’s mother, Mary-Jane Campbell, competed in the novice horse class. Another family victory was that of Sara Howe’s daughter Phillipa, driving her grandmother’s pony, gaining the fastest marathon prize, the only advanced single pony driver.
Adam Wylie topped all three phases convincingly, intermediate horse, and Tracey Fletcher took the open horse class from Sara Clough, Gail Bain (AUS) third. Ellen Littlechild had the fastest single horse marathon and was the only advanced horse driver to finish.

Katy Alvis drove Nicola Blandin’s Carrwood Acclaim to victory in the novice pony class with young Colette Holdsworth close behind. Nicola Blandin won the open pony class with Bennington Carriages’ Sue Mart and young Fudge within sight. Alison Drew, intermediate pony, beat young Megan Wheeldon by just 0.03 penalties. Several young drivers performed their dressage test although only Isobel Wesbroom-Warr completed all three phases in their special class. Another loner was the only tandem, Judy Hilditch, driving her own and John Wilkinson’s horses.
Dick Lane ran hors concours so it was Pippa Bassett who took the horse teams class from Christine Jamieson, Dan Naprous having withdrawn.
The cones phase toppled drivers’ placings in several cases, the most excitingly close contest being in the novice horse class, local Charlotte Chard and Casper leaping from fifth to first with the best performance of the day. Just ten penalties separated the top six drivers.

Advanced horse pairs also had a tight finish, Manx Libby Priest and Ireland’s Folke Rohrssen piling the pressure on to overnight leader, Scotland’s Owen Pilling, after strong marathon results. Libby topped the class in light rain with the class’ best cones score. Ireland’s Barry Capstick joined the dressage judges although he withdrew his horse pair. Derrick Mayes had a well-deserved victory, horse pairs, and Tom McGregor’s careful and consistent driving of his promising younger pony gave him the dressage and cones advantage over David Wheeldon, pony pairs.

Barely 25% of drivers had penalties in single figures in the cones phase, which might have disappointed the designer of the course, replicated in arenas one and two, Carol Meredith, however the challenge did make the phase seriously competitive.
The patriotically decorated obstacles were flagged to offer flowing routes and plenty of choices by Steve Lucas with Anthony Cooper.

Zoe Morgan and Wilf Bowman-Ripley headed a cheerful, well-organised team of volunteers and officials who made the event a great success and it’s good to see Terry Chambers’ popular southern venue back on the national calendar. Results were published live online using Mike Watts’ scoring system.

Fiona Powell