A brace of young Scottish riders got their names onto the roll of honour at the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships today (1 July).
The first came in the form of Kendal Blow, when she took the top prize in the Petplan Equine elementary under-21 area festival. Twenty-year-old Kendal made the lengthy journey from Glasgow worthwhile, scoring 70.34% aboard DPUK Dark Moon (pictured).
“‘Bluebell’ can be a bit of a stressy character and doesn’t cope very well in big environments and usually needs calming powder, but as the weather was warmer today, he actually came out a little bit more relaxed,” explained Kendal, who is studying performing arts at university in Edinburgh. “I cut my warm-up time down as a result to try and keep him a little on his toes, but I was so pleased with him and he tried his heart out for me.”
Bluebell is Kendal’s only horse and she has owned the 12-year-old for eight years.
“He’s really come into himself recently – he was cut late, which is probably why he has been a bit of a slow developer,” she explained.
Fifteen-year-old Hilary Cowie, who also hails from Scotland, having travelled to these championships from her native Aberdeenshire, was second to Kendal. She scored 70.09& riding Shall We Dance II, while 15-year-old Morgan Kent was third. Morgan, whose godmother is Pammy Hutton, scored 69.75% with his ride, Kolstein’s Don Amigo.
Emma Mcclelland topped the leaderboard in the Petplan Equine preliminary under-21 area festival class aboard Mountain Hill, a 14.2hh Connemara.
“It’s his first big competition and it’s my first big dressage competition too as we only started BD together in November,” explained Emma, who was another Scottish invader, having travelled down from Aberdeenshire. “We’re just really happy to be here and I think he really enjoyed being in the arena.”
Emma studies dietetics at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh and has been riding the 10-year-old for a year.
“He hadn’t really done a great deal before I started riding him so I’m excited to see what we can achieve now,” she said. “He’s a really fun pony.”
Daisy Bullman was second to Emma, in what was a really close class, with less than .4% separating the top three. Daisy scored 72.43% riding Godrics Dionysus, while Sasha Good was third on 72.36% on L’Sierra.
Read the full report from the Winter Dressage Championships in the 8 July 2021 issue of Horse & Hound magazine, and keep checking back to horseandhound.co.uk for more news and features
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