Our competition didn’t get off to the best start when not one but two competitor’s vehicles broke down on the way and they didn’t make it to the venue. However we still had enough arrivals for a records and ranking competition and started off on Saturday morning with a track we are trialling, the Tower Walk 60. It does what it says on the tin, 6 runs of tower on 60 metres at walk, the only restriction being you can shoot a maximum of 10 arrows per run. Following that we did a canter Tower 90 and then one group of Raid 234, dodging the showers!
Sunday we started early with the second Raid group and then on to the main event, the eagerly anticipated Hunt Track. Just one competitor in the BHAA prelim Walk hunt and she did an excellent job shooting her 10 targets.
The main canter track was 750 metres long with a knock down target requiring a fluflu arrow and for the first time in the UK, a jump shot. Other tricky shots included a hanging cube target and our old friend on loan from France, Gorbag the orc.
Congratulations to our very own Oli Secker riding Zavon who won all 3 HBAE events to take the top spot and also to Amy Lewis from the Ribble Valley Mounted Archers who won the walk competition.
Huge thanks to Head Judge John Goodwin and to all our volunteers who came to help, especially with the hunt track.
It’s hard to bellieve that our little club is 10 years old already! To mark the occasion, clearly a party was in order. And what a party it turned out to be!
The event was based around an HBAE (Horseback Archery Eventing) competiton, the first such competiton to be held in the UK with a full IHAA Hunt track. But of course we also had to have some fun events alongside the more formal competition, such as the Beer Trot which proved very popular!
Day one began with the first walk event, the Arena 30, which saw some impressive scores mount up, including a British record-breaking 117 from Maria, our Chair. Then the first of the HBAE tracks, the Raid 233 was run, and run rather quickly by some of the horses, making for some exciting watching!
Day two was the main event, the IHAA Hunt Track. Two runs of a winding 500m course with 12 targets to hit, including a longshot at 30m, ground shots and an offside shot. The course also contained a technical element, a stop box where competitors needed to keep the horse absolutely still whilst taking their shot at a Tabla target. A real test of riding as well as shooting!
We also ran a shorter intermediate Hunt track that could be done at walk or trot. After the excitement of the hunt track, there was an unmounted Wand Shoot, aiming for a very narrow target with only 3 arrows allowed in a fast knock out competition with increasing distances from the target. Some sharp shooting from Katherine saw her take the prize for this one!
Then the final event of the day – the Beer Trot. Riders needed to carry a pint of beer down the 90 metre run in trot spilling as little as possible. Marks were also awarded for style. We had a lot of people clearly highly skilled in not losing their beer, since they got to drink the beer afterwards! Top prize went to Becca for this one, and a special prize for Dom who not only didn’t spill any beer whilst trotting but also not even when her pony decided to rear!
Finally the day was rounded off with a barbecue and firepit with marshmallows to toast……
Day 3 was for the final HBAE track, the Tower 90. Some very impressive scores in this competition and not one but two British national records set, Katherine shot a senior record and Issy a new junior record!
We also ran a final fun event, the Two Towers, just at walk but with a tricky Orc target to hit as well as two tower targets.
Final results for the HBAE competition, congratulations to winner Nick, with Michael and Katherine runners up. We would like to thank all competitors, helpers, judges Helen, Maria, John, Alick, Mike, Chris and Black Fox Archery for being such an excellent host. Here’s to the next one!
We were invited to bring the horses along to the annual Black Cat reenactor’s event and we had a great weekend talking to people about the sport and doing some demonstrations of horseback archery throughout the weekend. We had also been asked to join in the battle at the end but the horses were definitely not keen on heading to a battlefield filled with people in clanking armour!
Cotteswold Mounted Archers 