After a very hot Saturday, Sunday was again hot but there was a good breeze to keep temperatures in check. This was to be the Poacher’s second one day event at a venue that had not been used before.

The PHC construction team had done some heroic work across the venue building obstacles and setting out the marathon route on ground that resembled concrete. Greg designed a large cones course in the shape of PHC which drove well but invited errors.

The event began with the dressage and the novice class started proceeding. There were three entries plus Anya Mower going HC with her team of small ponies. Carole Roberts had the best round with 53 penalties followed by Helen Faulkner with 62. The open class was lead by Sarah Braybrook on 46 penalties with Jane Smith in second with 57 penalties.

The Cones course followed and this caught out most of the novices with Carole Roberts taking the win with 21.3 penalties. The open class was much closer with Sarah B, Duncan S-S and Julie Jackson within .7 of each other, but they were all shown the way by Gary Norgrove who produced a superb round with 3.8 penalties.

When the marathon got under way there was some tight competition from the novice class with Carole Roberts and Gail Joughin swapping fastest times over the 6 obstacles. In the open class Gary Norgrove took obs 1 from Duncan by .31secs. Duncan took obs 2 & 3 but Gary came back and took obs 4 by .13sec. Obstacle 5 saw Duncan take a long route which cost him time and Gary Norgrove and Sarah Braybook were separated by .07secs with Gary taking the win. The final obstacle time was smashed by Jane Smith who managed a win by 3.13secs from Gary Norgrove.

The overall marathon was under 6km but timing made all the difference to the final results, Gary Norgrove only amassed 1.31 penalties followed by Jane Smith with 2.17 and then a gap to Duncan with 6.57 penalties.

When the final final scores were revealed the Novice winner was Carole Roberts followed in second by Gail Joughin. The Open class was won by Gary Norgrove with Sarah Braybrook second and Jane Smith taking third with a young pony, just ahead of Duncan by 3points.

Overall the competition was remarkably close but there were again eliminations which could have been avoided.