So she has been concentrating on fine-tuning the dressage which will be the
So she has been concentrating on "fine-tuning" the dressage, which will be the first phase of the event that runs from 8 to 11 July.The 20km marathon, which is the second phase, ends with the crucial section containing eight maze-like hazards, usually with at least one of them through water. Hordes of people are gunning for her, among them her loyal supporters at Saracen Horse Feeds, which provides fodder for the team.Last week the ponies were already as fit as they needed to be and Frith wanted to keep them at that level: "With headstrong fizzy Welsh ponies, it would be easy to go over the top," she said. "My customers are wonderfully supportive, some of them just drop in for regular updates," Frith said. She works in the shop (which, as the name suggests, is a family business) five days a week, so is normally on hand to give the latest bulletin herself. Though championships for horse teams date back to 1971, the pony equivalent was not introduced until 1995 with the first of the European Championships which are now held every two years.So far Frith has a monopoly on the individual title (having won the first two) and she admits to feeling under serious pressure as she prepares her dynamic Welsh ponies for an attempted hat-trick. Many regular customers of the Surrey chemist are aware that on Thursday their 29-year-old pharmacist, Georgina Frith, will be in Saumur, in France, where she will begin the defence of her two successive victories in the European Driving Championships for teams of four ponies.
On Saturday, Di Lampard will be aiming for a third victory in the Queen Elizabeth II Cup, having achieved her second success last year on Abbervail Dream.. AT FRITH PHARMACY in Wallington the talk is not so much of pills as of ponies. He may, however, rely on the 19-year-old Tees Hanauer (back in action after a colic operation this year) when he defends the King George V Gold Cup on Sunday.Last year, when he squelched through the mud to win on Mighty Blue, Smith recorded his third victory in this annual classic for men. The contest incorporates the last of three International British Team Trials from which the top three partnerships automatically qualify for the European Championship squad of five.Smith, the joint leader with Michael Whitaker after the first two trials, believes that 12-year-old Al Mare is capable of tackling championship courses and he is eager to prove that point this week. "I pushed her a bit too much," he said, after the lapse at the last fence in the first round of the Nations Cup.Robert Smith will also be looking towards the European Championships when he rides Senator Al Mare in the British Grand Prix on Thursday. This 11-year-old mare proved wonderfully consistent over the tough courses in Aachen, where she made only one error in a total of eight runs. The last British Nations Cup victory was back in August 1997 - at Bratislava in Slovakia.The home riders will face formidable opposition from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Italy and the United States - with most countries sending their best riders in preparation for the European Championships which will be held at Hickstead at the end of next month.John Whitaker plans to ride his new mount, Virtual Village Flower, in the Nations Cup.
The contest will be completed tomorrow over a combined showjumping and cross-country course of 28 fences.Seven teams will contest Friday's Nations Cup in which the home quartet (the Whitaker brothers, Di Lampard and Nick Skelton) will attempt to end a dismal record in the Samsung series. Today Coyle will be reunited with Mary McCann's grey stallion Cruising, who has been at his owner's stud in County Kildare since winning the Aachen Grand Prix in Germany last month. "It's like old friends getting back together," Coyle said of his reunion with the great horse, who will be making his first appearance at Hickstead in the showjumping contests which begin tomorrow. The meeting opens with today's dressage phase of the Course & Hound Eventing Grand Prix in which Coyle and Michael Whitaker are two of seven showjumping riders who are set to take on 19 eventers - among them last year's victor, Pippa Funnell. TREVOR COYLE, who last competed at Hickstead 12 years ago, returns to the Sussex showground as part of a strong Irish team for this week's Royal International Horse Show.
The players had been celebrating their victory over the ACT Brumbies in Canberra.The team manager, Tony Bedford, said: "We've spoken to them individually and as a group They're claiming that there was no major altercation. One player had been punched and that was the end of the story."Winger Jonah Lomu was relegated to New Zealand's reserves for Saturday's opening Tri-Nations championship match against South Africa despite scoring two tries in the A side's win against Canberra's ACT Brumbies at the weekend.NEW ZEALAND: (v South Africa, at Dunedin, 10 July): J Wilson; C Cullen, A Ieremia, D Gibson, T Umaga; A Mehrtens, J Marshall; C Hoeft, A Oliver, K Meeuws, N Maxwell, R Brooke, A Blowers, J Kronfeld, T Randell (capt).SOUTH AFRICA: P Montgomery; B Paulse, P Muller, P Rossouw, J Mulder; G du Toit, D von Hoesslin; O du Randt, N Drotske, C Visagie, M Andrews, K Otto, C Krige, A Venter, G Teichmann (capt).. How could it not be their first or second-string side?" he said.However, the SRU responded by claiming it is the IRB regulations which, by omission, dictate that the second-string team of any country is determined by the name of the side taking the field, which in Scotland's case is the A team.Because the match was not a full international and their team was chosen from the entire touring squad, the SRU feels the team that faced the Barbarians cannot be officially recognised as a second team.New Zealand officials said they may consider using minders to keep leading players out of trouble following a weekend nightclub incident in the Australian capital, Canberra.New Zealand A team management today confirmed three players - All Blacks Craig Innes, Carlos Spencer and Walter Little - were held briefly by police after a dispute in a club in Canberra in the early hours of Sunday. Under complicated IRB regulations, a player is deemed to have "represented" a country if he has either played for a national side, or an official second-string national side, against an equivalent team from a different country. However, after being asked by the IRB for its observations, the SRU claims the touring team that turned out against the Australian Barbarians - who are the Wallabies' official second team - did not conform to the regulations.O'Neill argued that if the team the Barbarians played against were not one of Scotland's top two sides then who were they? "They brought out the best players who were available for the tour. Jones-Hughes was selected by the Wales coach, Graham Henry, as part of his initial World Cup squad last week despite having played for the Australian Barbarians against Scotland last summer.