The Harden Horse Trials held their Annual competition last weekend. The weather ended up better than expected after an icy start. The showground looked a picture, cross country jumps were re-vamped and many thistles and weeds were sprayed and mowed thanks to many hours of hard work by the Harden Horse Trials Committee and volunteers.

Many locals rode and did very well as usual. Courtney Howe took out the Newcomers class on Sue Leitner’s horse Doc Could Roc, beating Natalie Blundell on PB for 2nd. Alison Bruce on Casey placed 5th whilst Sam Howe was 10th on her beautiful standardbred Lampian.

Bryony Graham did an outstanding job placing 5th in her first ever run at Introductory on horse Massive Attack. Natalie Blundell rode her race horse Giantism, and despite a not so pleasant dressage test, was happy that he was well behaved in the cross country section. Donna Tyrrell is bravely back in the saddle after having a baby recently riding Snowy in this class also.

Olivia Howe on her young horse Springsteen placed 10th out of 33 starters in the Preliminary section whilst Brittany Grovenor with her lovely ex race horse Ideal D’Amor had a refusal in the cross country, he shows huge potential in becoming a top eventer in the future.

The top class known as a 1 star class, which is the first of the National classes to qualify for international 3 day events, was won by Susan Burnheim on Poetic Lord. Whilst there were no locals competing in this event, many of the local juniors are aspiring to compete at this level one day. We are lucky to have such a great cross country course in our backyard and in coming years it will help produce more top class riders. This is all thanks to our ever hard working but small committee and sponsors Stevo’s Butchery, Main Event Photography, Ceeney’s Supermarket, Mobil Harden and Thompsons Rural supplies. The Harden Gun Club did a great job catering and on a whole the event was very successful with many comments on what a great weekend it was.