Our Ladies of HFT

Gary Chillingworth reveals just how accessible Hunter Field Target competitions are, with an exclusive look at some of the well-known ladies involved in the sport

- Gary Chillingworth

One of the things that I love most about our sport is how inclusive it is. It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, tall or short, fat or thin, man or woman, you are welcome. So, to honour International Women’s Day, I thought that I would take a look at some of the ladies of our sport, some current, some from a while back, and some that I need to do something nice for, because I have upset them in the past – I’m not actually sure whether I have upset them or not because when I asked them, they said it was fine, but you can never tell.

This a very small sample of the ladies that we have shooting in HFT, and I apologise for the ones that I have left out. We have some stunning shooters like Theressa Reed, Jennie Stone, Steph Kirkwood – who was the first lady to be in a shoot-off for a world title in HFT – and many others.These girls have already had many things written about them, though, so I’m going to look at some of the others, and sing their praises for a change.

CLAIRE WEST

To get things rolling, I’m going to look at a non-shooter. This lady is probably one of the most important females in HFT – the whole airgunning world, in fact. Claire West is the owner, managing director and top bod at Air Arms. She is one of HFT’s and FT’s biggest backers and over the years she has taken Air Arms into a whole new world, with new models like the Galahad Bullpup and the New XTi-50 turbo GTI, and she has been at the forefront of the airgunning industry.