Harriet Ford and According to Archie – the inaugural Novice Masters winners at Barbury International Horse Trials last month – were in action once again, continuing to demonstrate their aptitude for this competition by posting an extremely competitive dressage mark of 27.60. This was good enough for equal second at the end of the dressage phase but the lead (and an extra goody bag from BETTA LIFE and a special rosette sponsored by EHOA - The Event Horse Owners Association for the best dressage score of the class) went to Lauren West and Valentino 46, with a score of 25.5.

There was less than a pole separating the top five going into the show jumping, so poles and time faults were going to be costly. The show jumping did change the leaderboard but not for Lauren or Harriet, who remained on their dressage scores in first and second respectively.

Tina Ure and the team at Little Downham had done a splendid job and put on a special cross country track for this class – adding some extra fences to increase the technicality. The time was influential as it always is at Little Downham. Harriet was first of the leading riders to take to the course, and she put in a faultless round to guarantee a top two finish for herself and According to Archie. Would it be two wins out of two in this competition? Harriet had done all she could, and it was then down to Lauren and Valentino, the only combination that could get ahead of her. They could afford to be five seconds over the time but no more, so the pressure was on.

A super clear, five seconds inside the time, secured the win for Lauren and Valentino 46 – or Fergus as he is known at home. The success saw them head home with a bundle of prizes courtesy of HorseQuest and a £200 Jump 4 Joy voucher.

All smiles for Lauren West and Valentino 46

Harriet Ford added a fantastic second place to her win last month with According to Archie and Ella Dalton and Chantilly Amatullah completed the top three.

The top three - Lauren West (centre), Harriet Ford (left) and Ella Dalton (right).

“I’m really glad we did this competition,” said Lauren afterwards. “We’re definitely going to do the next one at Allerton Park.

“We were hoping to go Intermediate and do another 2* Long this year but unfortunately Fergus decided he didn’t want to jump into water anymore, so we decided to step back down. We’d qualified for this and we thought it looked a great opportunity – it’s a bit more exciting than a normal novice – so we thought we’d give it a go.

“I just ride Fergus, Katherine Barker owns him, so for her to be able to have prizes like that, after investing the money and the effort that she does, it really does make it worthwhile.

Lauren (centre) with Valentino 46's owner, Katherine Barker, and Tina Ure.

‘He’s just the easiest cross country horse I’ve ever sat on and I just had the most fun round that course really – he was just dead straight on his lines. Tina had made a real effort. There was a bit more than just a Novice track, with a few more combinations here and there, which was great because he found it quite easy. It’s always really nice when they do that.

“I went to Frickley the week before and he won the Novice there, so coming off the back of that, I would have liked to have thought that I’d be competitive – but did I think that I was going to win? Probably not.

“We pulled up and parked on the front row, with the dressage arena right in front of us and I watched about five horses do the most lovely tests. I was thinking, ‘gosh, the standard’s actually really good’.  We were in our tails as well, which was lovely.

“Harriet, who had come home and inside the time and finished on her dressage score, finished about 10-15 horses before me – so as I was warming up for cross country the commentator was really building it up. They were saying, ‘Oh it’s all for Lauren to lose, she needs to come home clear and pretty much inside the time, she can be three or four seconds over…’ And I was thinking, ‘Oh my days, please stop! I’m really not good under pressure.’ This is the girl that hides and doesn’t look at the scoreboard and normally doesn’t know where she is going into the cross country!

“There’s not really been any prize givings for so long and we’ve competed at places where there has been no tannoy or commentators - it was just really nice to have a bit of an atmosphere again and at the end of it be rewarded with a nice prize-giving.”

There are some fantastic prizes on offer for the Novice Masters competitions.

Our winners at Little Downham included:

Ollie Martin - received a free video of his cross country round from An Eventful Life, for being closet to the optimum time with Martins Irish Eddie

Pip Taylor and Urlanmore Friendly - received the prize of artic boots and a Le Mieux saddle cloth from horsehealth.co.uk for being the Highest Climber, she moved up from 39th to 12th place

Harriet Ford and According to Archie – won the £50 bonus courtesy of the EHOA - The Event Horse Owners Association for being their best placed member

Ben Leathers’ rider, Con Rico – was the best placed veteran horse (16 or over), receiving a joint supplement and goody bag from BETTA LIFE.

Looking forward...

The next Novice Masters competition will take place at Allerton Park Horse Trials on Saturday 18 September. Depending on entries, the event may decide to run day before dressage on the Friday, so please keep this in mind when making your entry.

What is the Novice Masters?

The Novice Masters is a new initiative from British Eventing, which aims to provide riders competing at Novice with an achievable new goal. As well as riding a bespoke dressage test designed especially for this class, in an international sized 20m x 60m arena with two dressage judges, Novice Masters competitors can also choose to ride their test in a Tailcoat, adding to the special feel of this occasion.