Laurie Strangman and Roger Clarke really enjoy and take pride in their course building and it is good to know that these two "elder statesmen" are training the next generation in the art and with Roger's son Andrew Clarke and Eric Kimble being almost as enthusiastic it looks like we will be enjoying super courses for many seasons to come.

Almost 30 teams had been turned away due to record numbers of entries with 62 teams in the novice and 30 teams in the open and the organisers may have thoughts on running their hunter trial on a different day and keeping the day purely for the team chase, hopefully with an intermediate class included as there were probably a few teams tackling the open who were not quite ready, but who did not want to compete in the novice against a bogey time.

The novice was won by The Bacchanalians team of Laura Day, Banjamin and Frances Elson, with Archie and his Bitch Pack second and Bits and Peaces third.

There were mixed fortunes in the Open class with several teams losing riders around the course, the water proved to be a big problem for many and it was most unfortunate that it was here George Goring, returning to the saddle once again after hanging up his boots at the Fernie last year, lost his new horse Rupert the Bear.

The Joules Knightly Hatters followed up their Atherstone win with another immaculate round, the Shipley Brothers lan and Andrew, Stuart Morris and Dickie Barrett once again cut every corner and with their superb speed across the country managed to relegate the Forge Flyers into second place with over five seconds in hand. Graham Smith, still without a horse, was replaced by Nick Pearce and with Jos Hanbury back in harness Debbie Topping and Yvonne Goss looked set fair to be back on a winning track with a time of 4minutes 13.53seconds.

A very well deserved third, booking their place in the Goring Hotel Championships at the Fernie, went to the Generation Gap, Alastair Beedles giving Katherine Tudor, Sarah Gibson and Susannah Gill a cracking lead. Sarah Gibson had a crashing fall after Manny appeared to slip on the turn and was taken to Banbury hospital, however she managed to make it back for the prize giving. Susannah Gill had been "pressganged" into riding with the team this weekend, as she is so busy with her university work but was pleased Katherine persuaded her.

The Bitch Pack, who are really on a high this season, had raided the Mixed Pack for some of their team members finished fourth with fifth and the other well deserved qualifying place for the championships going to the Gommes Country Stores Wonky Tank Women.

The final placing went to the Hair Raisers 11 in a time of 4mins 27.44seconds.

In all there were 15 teams finishing in under 5 minutes, teams deserving a mention were the Whacky Racers who finished 7th, Fight the Ban.com who no doubt would have been much further up the order had their lead rider Ben Pauling not gone off in entirely the wrong direction after fence three. The Equus Health Herbal Junkies Sixth at the Atherstone but relegated to 10th at the Bicester. Odds and Sods, Pickworth Paradox, Game for a Giggle with Alice Paine, master of the Bicester Hounds, having a great ride, the Boring Gorings and the Marston Misfits who were one of the few teams to get all four riders home.

Netty Nevill