Winners of the Petplan Equine Medium Silver Freestyle Championship class from Upham, Victoria Homden and Olly gave their all to win this competitive class at Arena UK, Lincolnshire on October 5.

The Petplan Equine Area Festival Summer Championship is the pinnacle of a summer of Area Festivals held around the country during July and August where qualification for the much sought after tickets to the Championship is in the forefront in riders’ minds. 

More than 800 horse and rider combinations took their turn between the white boards to qualify at all levels from Preliminary to Inter I.

The partnerships contending the Petplan Equine Medium Silver Freestyle title had to produce an extremely polished performance and show off their horses ‘star quality’ on the day. It was a serious accomplishment to finish on top of the leader board. Victoria and Olly, a nine-year-old stallion were rewarded for all their hard work and dedication by the judges to achieve a winning score of 70.89 per cent.

Victoria said: “It’s been a bit of an intense week! We finally got it right today in the Advanced Medium.

“I couldn’t get the timings right in the test for love nor money but I'm really pleased it all came together today. We hit the right points when we needed to change pace and it was really nice to be back in the arena.

“It’s a big thing this floorplan, it was done for my instructor who got diagnosed with cancer at the start of the year. The music is all of her favourite songs so it was really important to me this year that I got it right, I was really proud of that.” Victoria dedicated her win to Katharine Lewis, who received the all-clear a few weeks ago, “this one’s for her, I hope we did her proud Olly.”

British Dressage chief executive, Jason Brautigam, added: “It’s hard to believe that Petplan Equine is looking forward to a 25th anniversary next year when we have been celebrating 25 years since the inception of British Dressage in 2023. We have been in partnership for a long time and continue to be extremely proud of what we have achieved together.

“We have had record entries for the Area Festivals this year and new and old members alike see the Area Festivals as a target for their competing. The structure encourages them to work up to another level or further as each season goes by which helps to maintain these high participation figures. 

“I would like to thank everyone who has taken part throughout the summer season and congratulate all riders who have earned their qualification to the championship finals, as well as those who are crowned champions this week.”

Further information about the Petplan Equine Area Festivals and how to qualify for next year’s Championships are available from the Petplan Equine website at: petplanequine.co.uk/area-festivals/.