The European Young Riders Eventing Championship reached its exciting climax at Blair Castle yesterday with the British team winning gold and Willa Newton winning an individual silver medal.

Strong nerve

In a tense show jumping finale in the international arena with the stunning backdrop of Blair Castle, the young riders from Britain held their nerve to hold off a challenge from the Irish team. Willa Newton and her horse Neelix and Tom McEwan and Private Rudolf both jumped clear to finish in second and fourth respectively. Fife based Wills Oakden and Button Clover was unlucky to have three jumps down to add 12 penalties to his overnight score and drop him to thirteenth individually. The final team member who got off to such a great start after the dressage, Dani Evans and Uchin picked up 42.8 penalties on Saturday and a further four yesterday to drop to 32^nd and become the discard score.

However their combined efforts were enough to give them a total of 169.2 points, nearly nine points ahead of second placed Ireland with the German team taking bronze.

Great record

Great Britain has a great record in this competition having won team gold six out of the last seven years and sharing it with Germany last year.

Senior results

New Zealander Andrew Nicholson finished on his dressage score of 50.4 on Calico Joe to win the Barclays Wealth CCI*** class. This horse, along with Shady Grey on which he came fourth are both owned by four or five people who call themselves the Twenty Twelve In Mind Syndicate and are doing their best to make sure Andrew has the horse power to get on the Olympic team.

British team member for the forthcoming European championships, Nicola Wilson and Bee Diplomatic took first place in the Barclays Wealth CIC*** where competitors show jump and go across country on the same day. She added only four show jumping penalties and 6.8 cross-country time penalties to her dressage score of 46.4 to finish on 58.2, nearly seven points ahead of William Fox-Pitt and Parklane Hawk. This combination were fourth in the two star at Blair last year and William is also on the team for the Europeans.

Things are looking good for the British team at the Europeans in Luhmulen, Germany, next week as the CCI** was won by another selected team member, Polly Stockton and Benromach, a horse which was bred by the Lochore family at Forres.