Vet puts her foot down

A Connemara not renowned for speed and a new family horse out for a test drive are among the winners

- ELLIE HUGHES

TWO riders who were returning to eventing after lengthy breaks triumphed in the BE80 sections.

Small animal vet Kirstin Gribben and her 14.3hh Connemara Cillbhrid Gavin (Pablo) added one pole down in the showjumping and 0.4 of a cross-country time-penalty to their dressage score of 32 to top section P.

Prior to this season, the last time Kirstin left the start box at an affiliated event was in 2013 on her family’s pony.

“I bought Pablo to get me back into the sport and have fun with,” said Kirstin, who was pleasantly surprised by the gelding’s turn of foot around Hopetoun’s undulating estate.

“This was our third event together and at the first two we finished 46 seconds and 25 seconds over the optimum time on pan-flat courses, so to be honest it was a total shock to be only one second over – and even more so to win!”

Lisa Macdonald steered her 12-year-old daughter Kayla’s new acquisition, the 15hh Irish gelding Master Dunne, to victory in section O despite similarly finishing just a shade outside the optimum time for 1.2 penalties.

“Kayla was not very impressed with me and demanded to know whether I was wearing my watch,” laughed Lisa, who last competed on her now-retired eventer five years ago, but has taken on the ride on Master Dunne to prepare him for her daughter to take over the reins later in the year.

“I was delighted with his dressage. He can be quite hard work on the flat, but we’re going in the right direction with it and I’m hoping that his good mark of 32 wasn’t to do with the awful rain, which was coming down in sheets, but all to do with my hard work at home!”