Wheathampstead Magazine
Kimpton Horse Show
This year there were hundreds of entries across the 47 classes for the 75th Kimpton Horse Show, the annual village show. Thanks to the generous support of its sponsors, judges, stewards, helpers, competitors and friends, this well loved traditional village show continues to happen every year.
Eight-year-old Mollie Gibson-Holt and her 21-year-old pony, Shandy, won the most points across the show to reclaim the Harding Challenge Cup from their previous success in 2017. They collected a number of first and second places during the day, including red rosettes in the Best Young Rider, Best Young Handler, In Hand Veteran and Ridden Odd Coloured.
Mollie and Shandy also came second in the Concours D’Elegance class, which is always a real crowd pleaser with horses and riders adorned in beautiful period costume.
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Kimpton has been Hayley Ward’s favourite show since she was tiny. This year, the seasoned competitor was back with two new horses to contest the Harding Cup, which she took three years on the trot with her older pony, Redwing’s Noel, between 2014 and 2016. This year, Hayley and her horse Red Inferno settled for the Wren Cup, having accumulated the second greatest number of points across the show with wins in the Retrained Racehorse, Riding Horse and Accumulator show jumping.
A new showing championship was introduced for the 2019 show; the Redwing’s Noel Riding Horse Championship, kindly supported by Hayley.
Other show highlights included the much-loved Fancy Dress class, which saw four-year-old Eva Jarmain-Chew take her third win on the trot with her pony Cosfrod Peronelle dressed as Pluto, and the whole Disney crew in tow, including Minnie, Mickey and Goofy!
Andrea Clarkson rode Mymswood Mystery to the £50 prize pot in the Superstakes 1m jumping class and the beautiful Working Hunter course was conquered by Pollyglen Clover ridden by Gillian Hare, who won the Working Hunter Horse class. The Youngstock class was very well supported with Archie’s Artful Fox and Grace Peverall taking first place.
A wonderful 75th Anniversary Grand Draw topped off the day, with all the money raised going to charity, alongside the overall show proceeds. Among the prizes generously donated were a beautiful Osprey London handbag, tickets to Horse of the Year Show and a magnum of Moet.