The last show of the Winter Classic Series at South View Equestrian Centre in Cheshire recently played host to a number of final qualifiers including The Champagne Cave Winter Grades B&C Championship Qualifier.
Harry Bateman from Hockley, Essex had been knocking on the door for a qualifying ticket to the Championship Finals all season but hadn’t quite managed to take home the goods until he finally took the win in The Champagne Cave Winter Grades B & C Qualifier with Greta Garbo. Thirteen of the initial thirty-four starting combinations jumped clear around Gillian Milner’s ten fence-track to make it through to the jump-off with five of those going on to produce a double clear, which meant it was a race against the clock to allocate the final two qualifying tickets on offer for the Championship Final held at the prestigious Royal International Horse Show at Hickstead, West Sussex in July.
Harry steered Jaqueline Jones’ Greta Garbo, a 7-year-old German-bred grey mare to the top spot by utilising the mare’s naturally quick pace leaving all of the fences intact and crossing the finish line in 32.91 seconds. Harry narrowly missed out on a one-two with his other ride Granby when Derek Moreton piped him to the post by crossing through the finish line 0.25 seconds faster than Granby’s time of 33.83 seconds. Derek from Stone, Staffordshire took the final ticket on offer with Zoe Snedker’s KBS High Quality, an 8-year-old Irish-bred gelding that he was selected on as part of Team NAF at the Veteran European Championships in Germany in 2018. They crossed the finish line faultless in 33.58 seconds.
Photo: British Showjumping
