17 year-old Toni Evans from Southend-On-Sea, Essex was victorious on the 17 year-old dun mare Caramel Twist, owned by Kerry Evans, in the Dodson & Horrell National 0.85cm Amateur championship held as part of the Dodson & Horrell National Amateur and Veteran Championships which took place over five busy days of exciting competition at Aintree Equestrian Centre 19th– 23rd November 2014. The Championships proved to be as popular as ever and over 1,500 rounds of showjumping took place. These Championships followed a successful National Amateur Second Round period in which we saw 1,600 combinations start out.
The National Amateur Championships gave amateur riders and horses the opportunity to contest an end of year final across four different heights of fences – 0.85cm, 0.95cm, 1.05m and 1.10m and the Championships also played host to the National Veteran Riders Championships, which are spilt into minor and major categories.
Forty-eight competitors battled it out for the 0.85m Championship title and after two hours of closely fought competition, Toni and Caramel Twist were crowned the victors.
The jump off was contested by twenty-nine of the starters and it proved to be competitive after sixteen double clears were achieved. Toni and Caramel Twist went into the class as one of the hot favourites after winning the two 0.85m Grand Prix qualifiers earlier on in the week and they continued their domination after crossing the finish line in 28.54 seconds with two clear rounds in the bag.
After having been drawn twenty-fifth to go in jump off, Toni admitted that she couldn’t watch the remainder of the class “I was in it to win it, so my plan was to ride as quickly and as carefully as I could and then hope that the music was played to let me know that we had taken the lead. Once I knew we had done enough, I then waited outside until the class had finished. I’m so pleased with how Caramel Twist has gone all week; she really has had a fantastic show.”
Toni Evans & Caramel Twist with Cassie Wright from Dodson & Horrell
