A huge crowd gathered at Garthorpe Racecouse near Melton Mowbray for the Belvoir Team Chase, the Belvoir were forced to move from their long standing venue at the Long Clawson farm of Richard and Karen Chandler due to farming policy and the new venue at Garthorpe was chosen, the course designed by Richard Chandler, Graham Dawes and David Selby was planned out from an aerial view of the course and an immense amount of hard work had gone into the construction of the fences, unfortunately the ground conditions forced all but two of the nine open teams entered to withdraw, which was a great pity for the organisers but understandable due to the firmness of the going as there had been no rain on the course for several months. The two teams that did come forward were the Wasps and the Tangos, the Wasps were first to go led off by Stuart Humphries, he unfortunately fell quite early on the course and when Jacqueline Coward also fell at fence 9 it looked as if their round was over, however after a quick sprint across to the start where her horse Scot Jack had been caught she remounted and managed to catch up to Tom Kaye and Martin Patemen. who had both jumped extremely well over the big drop hedges and open ditches on the beautifully built course.
The Tangos just needed a clear round to clinch the victory, as Paul Browes who led told me the pressure was enormous as they really wanted to give a good account of themselves and ably backed up by Caroline Smith, James Buckle and Tony Thorpe this quartet from Suffolk really showed what they were made of, Caroline Smith giving an incredible display of "stickability" when her horse Zara pecked at the first part of the in and out and she jumped the second part almost around the horse's neck. The crowd gave the Tangos a well deserved round of applause as they finished in a good time of 6.12mins.
The novice class in the morning attracted an entry of 40 teams and it was good to see that the Hopwas Hooligans were back in form and at last managed to take the correct course and go the right side of the flags, they had been most unlucky at the Grafton and the Atherstone when they had made grave navigational errors, this team consisting of husband and wife David and Corinne Whitehead, and Jayne Wilkinson had managed to persuade Amanda Cliff out of retirement this season to join them. They finished only one second ahead of the Power Pussies 4 x 4s, with Alan Pacey, Darren Watts, Vicky Skade and Anita Eggleston, unfortunately Anita stopped at the very first fence and so the other three had to make sure of a faultless round. Third place went to Moorbridge Mayhem, - Rachel Baldwin, Julie Wilton and David Gilbert with the Stroppy Mares in fourth, fifth place going to The Four Players and sixth the Uniroof Hoovers.
The day continued with all sorts of country pursuits including a fun dog show, hilarious terrier racing, archery and a parade of the Belvoir Hounds and concluded with a fun team event class against a bogey time which had an entry of 23 teams.
Netty Nevill
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