A report on the Area 5 Show at Long Buckby on 9 ^th May 2004.

The week running up to the event saw horrible down pours of rain. It was even a question was the event to carry on.

I rang on Thursday for the times and asked if ground was going to be ok for the lorries to get on and off and the organiser replied that it was being held on old pasture and it should cope.

I arrived with Rebeeca and our pony as she was competing to find a few lorries already there, including Steve and Fiona and at the gateway a jcb on standby. We got on the field ok however when I spoke to Steve and Fiona they had to use the help of the JCB to get on the ground and the organisers then placed straw on the ground to help other arrivals through the gateway. However as I spoke to Steve I could see that their lorry had embedded itself in the soft ground (Crisp having too many suppers maybe!) and they had to use the JCB to get off the field.

I then located Lorna who arrived with 10 mins to get herself warmed up to do her warm up test she told me she had trouble loading her horse as they had a new trailer and no way was he going in that thing. She made her warm up test by the orgainisers kindly letting her go later.

Fiona rode crisp instead of Steve due to him having a bad back and went first and did a lovely test resulting in 156 and being placed 10 ^th. Lorna's result was 142 being placed 26 ^th. Ann's result was 143 placed 19 ^th and Rebecca 123 and was placed 34th.

There were 18 teams and we were placed 12 ^th overall with 55 points which was excellent for our first attempt.

The overall results were as follows:

• 1 ^st Buckingham B with 10 points
• 2 ^nd Swallowfield with 12 points
• 3 ^rd S. Warks with 16 points
• 4 ^th Rugby with 20 points
• 5 ^th Solihull with 28 points
• 6 ^th S. Warks with 35 points
• 12 ^th Hinckley Dressage with 55 points

On behalf of Hinckley Dressage I would like to thank everyone who took part and lets see if we can be in championships in years to come.