Sharon and Sarah Harrison

The STARS Championships are fast becoming a pinnacle of the grassroots showing calendar. Tricia Johnson speaks to the women at the show’s helm

- Tricia Johnson

CHILDHOOD reminiscences over a kitchen table – and an impromptu post on Facebook – marked the start of what has now, in just four short years, become one of the most prestigious grassroots championship events on the showing circuit.

Add in the sheer determination and drive of the Lancashire-based mother-and-daughter team of Sharon and Sarah Harrison, and you have the recipe for the uber-successful STARS – Show Teams And Rising Stars – championships. This unique event, held at Aintree Equestrian Centre, has all the glitz, bells and whistles and is aimed squarely at riding club members; qualification to compete depends on points earned through the season at club events.

So who are the Harrisons and what prompted them to embark on this project in such challenging times? The family are certainly no strangers to hard work, but their dedication to the showing world had unlikely beginnings.

“Neither of my parents was at all horsey,” Sharon recalls. “But we lived next door to a livery yard and from the age of about seven, I was round there all the time helping with the ponies and horses. I learnt to ride the hard way – I wasn’t necessarily ‘pretty’, but I was effective and I learnt how to stay on.”

This was just as well as her first pony – when she was nine – was an unbroken two-year-old Welsh section A straight off the hills. However, the pair went on to compete at riding club events – Sharon has supported Leigh and District RC ever since, and her daughter Sarah’s association is lifelong – plus doing gymkhana games and handy pony classes at local shows.