So We Wish You Farewell

And so we come to the end of our epic adventure, with all the Young Riders having completed the PTV with varying degrees of success, we all partook in the consumption of some delicious foodstuffs, this coincided with the start of the Senior teams PTV, so we took up our optimum viewing spots and had a bit of a relax in the sun. All the seniors were doing well, and we

A good attempt...

awaited the arrival of Julian at the end of the course, and he did so with style, he approached the ditch, and unfortunately didn't get over, but went straight on the the hedge...and to all extents and purposes, he did do the obstacle, however the 'jump' element of it was slightly absent...the little Ffjord that replaced Eagle somehow mange to scramble completely through the hedge, with not even an essence of jump. This caused much amusement to all, and on the path crossing a round of applause was willing given for the valiant efforts of both horse and rider.

Once everyone had been around the course, we headed over to the office area to try and pick up results so we could put in any queries we had, however they all seemed to be ok. The next dilemma that faced us was the issue into what the format and time of the prize giving would be, so after coming to a unanimous decision that we had time to go and grab something to eat before the closing ceremony at about 1900, it was a bit of a surprise that we were told we had to be down at the arena in half an hour. So we all rushed to get ready, brush the ponies and change, we headed on down, only to be greeted by about another 30 minute or so wait. Eventually we all filed into the arena, Harvey thought this was really fun, and couldn't quite get past the idea of moving more than about a metre away from Lily, this was incredibly stressful for him when my mother and Lily had to go an collect a trophy for coming third in the European League last year. Harvey found the best way to deal with this was rearing up and spinning around, much amusement was caused for all due to his actions, I think he must have a brain the size of a peanut. After a long Austrian prize giving, the conclusion was made that...

Senior Teams                               Young Riders

1st France                                      1st France

2nd Austria                                     2nd Austria
3rd Switzerland                              3rd Portugal
4th Germany                                  4th Switzerland
5th Italy                                           5th Germany
6th Great Britain                             6th Great Britain
7th Portugal                                    7th Italy
8th Belgium                                     8th Sweden
9th Netherlands
10th Canada
11th Ireland
12th Sweden

After a bit of a cheeky stampede around, and out of the arena, much enjoyed by Harvey, we put the horses away, got changed, and went back down the arena and main tent. The party had already started here, and we entered just as the standing on tables and chanting began...this set us up for a good night, there was a lot of exchanging of presents and gifts between the nations, as is custom, and we managed to get a good haul of things this year. Our glow sticks were well received, and were definitely good bargaining items when trying to swap various bits of team kit. We all partied well into the night/morning, and it was sad to say goodbye to everyone and the European Championships. I had such a great week, and I definitely learned a lot, I always come away from competitions having learned something new, and hopefully next year we'll be able to improve and present an even stronger challenge to the other nations as a team. I hope you have all been informed and have enjoyed this experience, maybe not as much as I enjoyed going, but thank you for reading and all your support, especially to members of Blackdown Mendip Riding Club. Auf Wiedersehen. 

The Team of Glory