Heather, Justine, Rebecca

Heather Lacy
 
Heather started to ride at the age of 10, with her school pony club. Despite not having owned her own horse, Heather has been consistently improving her riding and whilst at school entered occassional unaffiliated show-jumping competitions on borrowed ponies. Heather decided to try polo in her first year of University and has never looked back. She captained the 2nd Beginner team for both the Winter 2008 and Summer 2008 University National Championships, leading her team to victory in the Summer. As a result, Heather was invited to play on the English University Students team at the SUPA University Nations Cup.
 
Rachel Cooper

Rachel started to ride before she could walk and progressed through pony club, competiing in all teams from games to eventing. At 14 she moved onto the showing circuit, travelling around the country to all the county shows in search of the prestigious HOYS and RIHS tickets. Nowadays, I mainly compete in mountain and moorland working hunter pony classes with my welsh section C, Starcrest Mel Aur, finishing 3rd this year at the Horse of the Year Show and won a class at the B.S.P.S summer championships. This is Rachel's 3rd year playing polo - she too started playing at university and fell in love with the sport. In her first year, she was a member of the winning Beginner team at the Winter university national championships and came 2nd in Summer.
 
Hannah Buckenham

Hannah started her equestrian career with a shetland pony when she was just 2 years old. Hannah has always been around horses and had ponies at home on the farm for hacking around. She came to university looking for a sport to quench her need for speed and started playing polo in the first year of university. The highlight of Hannah's career to date was winning the beginners division(with Rachel) at the Winter Championships 07, and taking the runners up spot in summer. To progress further, Hannah keeps her own polo pony at university. Hannah recently played on the English University Students team at the SUPA University Nations Cup.
 
Rebecca Griffiths
 
Having spent much of her early childhood on the West End stage, Rebecca decided that riding was more exciting and had her first pony at the age of 7.  Whilst on ponies, Rebecca captaned many Welsh showjumping teams to victory. She won major Grand Prixs and won the 'Best Rider' award at RIHS when she was 10. One of Rebecca's highlights was performing a Royal Salute on horseback to the Queen at Royal Windsor Horse Show. Having left the pony circuit to complete her schooling, Rebecca decided that she would have a go at polo when at university. She was soon 'hooked' and captained the Beginner team at the National Championships (Winter and Summer 2008), winning on both occasions. Rebecca was a member of the Welsh University Students team at the SUPA University Nations Cup.

New York crossed the finish line of Race 14 in first place at 0014 GMT (0114 BST) on Saturday claiming the overall title of Clipper 07-08. Duggie Gillespie and his team will claim the maximum ten points for securing their sixth first place in the ten-month series, giving them an unassailable lead over their nearest rivals, Hull & Humber. For Danny Watson and his team, hopes of an overall victory failed as the New York team stretched out a narrow lead over the rest of the fleet as they pushed towards Liverpool. Hull & Humber started Race 14 with a 3.5 point deficit to New York. New York finishes Clipper 07-08 with their final point tally in triple digits at 103.5 overall.

Read the full article...

A report from Josie Gibson of Raffiny sponsored Team Gibson 

This year the Woman’s match racing Worlds were held in Auckland, in Elliott 6s.  These  boats are not sailed in the UK, in fact or in Europe so team Gibson, sailing for the Royal Thames Yacht Club, travelled to Australia 2 weeks before the Worlds to compete in a feeder event with the aim of learning how to sail the boats.  The Harken run Sydney event was certainly a test for us and the extreme heat and jetlag did not favour the team however we learnt a great deal and the focus event was yet to come.  

The team was fresh for the start of the Worlds and had a stable first days racing.  Something had clicked and were getting to grips with the boat.  The second day was a challenge for us but the team sailed into 5th to qualify for the quarters, having beaten some of the top seeds in the last day of the round robin.  We convincingly beat Silke Hahlbrok, from Germany, in the quarter finals to gain a place in the Semi finals.  

We were up against Claire Leroy from France, the defending champion in the semis and her team beat us to go on to the finals.  The last day of racing brought fickle breeze and Claire was announced reigning  Champion for 2008 without sailing any races in the final.  This also meant there was no opportunity to race for 3rd place, placing us 4th on count back.   The event was tough shown by many of the top seeds being knocked out in early stages so we are extremely pleased to have repeated our 4th position on last year.

Josie