Britain’s pony riders claimed team bronze today at the FEI Pony European Championships, a first medal for Britain’s youth teams since 2005. The quartet of Rose Hugh-Smith, Rebecca Bell, Erin Williams and Phoebe Peters finished on a final score of 219.667% with gold medallists Germany on 225.795% and the Netherlands in silver with 221.513%.
Our first to go on Wednesday was Rebecca Bell with her mum Caroline’s Valido’s Sunshine who were called into the squad late when Bethany Horobin and Gigolo were ruled out due to injury. Third into the arena, they scored well with 66.128% to give Britain a solid start.
Second was Rose Hugh-Smith with her won Holsteins Derwisch and their score of 67.795% was enough to put Britain into fifth after day one. With a matter of a handful of marks covering bronze position to seventh, Britain was firmly in the medal hunt.
Bright and early this morning, Erin Williams and the palomino Dynasty, owned by her mum Claire, pulled out the stops when it mattered to post her best team score in international competition of 74.077% to really boost the team overall score.
It was down to Phoebe Peters and Tracy Peter’s SL Lucci who made their European team debut last year when she was just 12 and had only ridden Lucci for four months. A Medium national title and several wins with over 70% later, they now an established combination and it showed today when they wowed the showground with 77.795% for her personal best and the highest ever score by a British rider in the team test internationally.
Phoebe’s brilliant score rocketed us to silver medal position with the Germans untouchable in gold and it was then a waiting game to see if the Danish or Dutch final riders could go ahead. The calculators came out before the Danish rider and they required a 78%+ score to go ahead of us but their final rider posted 71% meaning a medal was secured; but what colour? The Dutch were strong as ever and a final 73.718% was enough to give them silver so it was bronze for us but what a fantastic effort by four talented and determined riders, their ponies, owners, support staff and of course, mums and dads!
Phoebe finished top of the class with her score with Erin in sixth, Rose 25th and Rebecca 30th. All four go to the individual competition which starts tomorrow but at the time of writing, no start times were available but will be posted on the event website. The medals will be presented on Saturday afternoon.
The top 15 from the individual will then go through to Sunday’s finale, the freestyle when a further set of medals will be won.
Full results – click here.
Pictures copyright Camille Peters and Helen Revington.