The venue holds bitter sweet memories for me, for although I had some super rides over the old course where the hedges used to be huge and part of the course included a fence in and out of the farmers garden, it was here 8 years ago that I had the crashing fall that ended my team chasing career.

This year there were few mishaps over the superbly built course designed by Laurie and Alicia Strangman and built by Roger Clarke with able assistance from Eric Kimble and John Price, although several riders took an early bath at the second water jump.

The Open course although not a big track was extremely twisty and required concentration when walking it and several riders took the wrong course.

It was good to see 26 teams entered in the Open and only 5 withdrawals meant an excellent 21 teams tackled the course. The Malt Mix Double Troubles who, even though they are unable to travel to many events as they live so far down south, always give a good account of themselves and ably led by Virginia Cronk were the first team to get round in under 5 minutes, their excellent time of 4.36.13 minutes looked to be the time to beat, it eventually gave them fourth place. Two teams later The Tangos looked to be keeping up their good form, but after losing Tony Thorpe half way round they could only manage a time of 4.37.94 nearly 2 seconds behind the Malt Mix, which eventually put them into 6th place. The Bitch Pack led for the first time in an open by Fiona Russell-Brown had an extremely neat and tidy round but were not up to the speed and finished in a time of 4.55.87. The Gophers with two riders Graham Smith and Debbie Topping from the Forge Flyers went a tremendous gallop and with tighter cornering they would probably have bettered their 5th place just snatching 00.91 of a second from the Tangos.

The Knightly Hatters, who were without Lucy Hyde Thompson due to her horse Monty not going on the hard ground, knew they could not afford a single mistake, but with Ian Shipley leading on his new horse Pepper, brother Andrew in hot pursuit and Stuart Morris bringing up the rear they put in an immaculate round, this was surely one of their best performances ever, cutting all the corners with great style and knocking 5 seconds off the Malt Mix time, thus taking them into a lead that looked pretty unbeatable. It was good to see Ian back on form after his crashing fall at the Championships in the spring.

A relatively new team Smac Atac who had finished fourth in the Intermediate at the Worcestershire the week before were next to go and they were another team to come home under the 5 minute mark, it really is boding well for the future of team chasing that new teams are coming through into the Open classes.

Next to go the Rappell Hair Raisers, who now seem to be getting back to their old form, were brilliantly led by Aly Brown on the lovely grey Dragon but even though they appeared to cut all the corners they just could not make it finishing just 4 seconds adrift of the Knightly Hatters giving them a well deserved 3rd place.

It was now left to the Forge Flyers who were without Graham Smith's old stalwart Cody to take up the Knightly Hatters challenge, as usual Junior was on top form and with Debbie Topping, Yvonne Goss on Perry Sarah Bailey on Garth and Graham on his other horse Jack giving yet another faultless display of team chasing they managed to knock an incredible 9 seconds off the Knightly Hatters time, thereby gaining them another well deserved win.

The two Team Valley teams, the Tiggers and the Tigers both finished in under 5 minutes making ten teams under the 5 minute mark which showed the course rode extremely well and was well worth all the hard work put in by the organisers.

31 teams contested the cubhunters class run to an optimum time in the morning, the team nearest to the time of 4.34minutes were the Norfolke and Goode team of Clare Abbott, Ken Wright and Robert Johnson with the Marston Misfits III team of Richard, Ellie and Mary Beaman and Rachel Marshall in second place.

Netty Nevill