Area 17 Championships, Moreton, July 2025
by Philippa Clarke

Blown Away at the Stay Away
You know it’s going to be a special kind of weekend when the phrase “championships” is immediately followed by a recommendation to bring a bucket of shavings to pee in.
The Area 17 Stay Away Championships promised three things: dressage, showjumping, and the sort of weather last seen in Twister. Our mission: take 14 Meon Riders, 16 horses, and tackle over 70 classes without losing anyone to heat, wind and hard ground. Oh and to keep breeches white for a whole weekend.
Friday: Reconnaissance
A small but determined scouting party left on Friday to claim the high ground. They arrived early, scoped out the loos (3 stars), checked for mobile signal (no bars, just a long walk to the WiFi), and located the stables away from the bee infested ones. By dusk, they had secured a premium pitch next to the electric fence and muck heap.
The rest of the gang thundered in Saturday morning in convoy, looking less like a riding club team and more like an equestrian remake of Mad Max. Plaits perfect, hooves oiled, nerves pumped up.
Saturday: the initiation
The first day began with dressage (read: pretending to be elegant while your horse insists the judge’s hut is a portal to hell). The baby horses had a baptism of fire. Apparently, white boards and artificial flora are the absolute pinnacle of horror for young equines. Even Dougal, who in human terms would be old enough to vote and should by now know better, nearly had an existential crisis when he caught sight of his own legs in a shed window. To be fair, his feet are massive.
Meanwhile, the jumping began at 50cm and climbed all the way to 1m – the full emotional scale. Forest got ahead of the game and did some jumping practice in the middle of his dressage test. Diane, on the other hand, got a literal jump-start from an electric fence, which wasn’t quite how she imagined warming up. But it worked.
Not withstanding a few dramatic “how very dare you” refusals the show jumping rounds were heroic. Kerry’s round was so fast and fearless it drew gasps from the crowd – although that may have been due to the shock of hearing her complete an entire course without once using a four-letter word.
Stanley and Nixie attempted artistic expression in their dressage tests by adding spontaneous poo at X – a sort of protest performance piece entitled Bowel Movement No. 5.
All day, Meoners sprinted between arenas like caffeinated squirrels – calling tests, videoing rounds, holding ponies, whispering desperate affirmations to themselves. Teamwork was alive and well, held together by caffeine, baler twine, and the promise of some cheesy chips at lunchtime.
Nightfall: The Campsite Chronicles
As dusk fell, horses chomped peacefully, and their humans drew together under the gazebo. There were cram sessions for Sunday’s tests, endless crisps, and several litres of Prosecco consumed as if it had medicinal properties (it might well have judging by the epic performance the next day). Supper included pot noodles and chocolate bars the size of a pony’s head.
Trailer inspections revealed a wide range of accommodation standards. Corine’s setup had a memory foam mattress. Gen’s smelled like the underpass at Elephant & Castle. She should have read the TripAdvisor reviews. (“1 star. Previous occupants were animals”)
Rain began to fall. Then the wind joined in. Tiff claimed there was a “feckin’ Pterodactyl” on the roof of her trailer. Nobody argued. By midnight, the Jurassic Coast had come alive, and we were all slightly damp, slightly hysterical, and definitely thinking our trailers weren’t watertight.
Sunday: The Reckoning
By morning, the arena monsters had grown – fuelled by the storm – and now featured flapping hedges, a suspicious tree, and possibly a goblin in a judge’s box. But by this point, we were seasoned. Hardened. Unshowered but undefeated.
Dressage tests were flung down like declarations of war. Show jumping rounds turned from chaotic to heroic. Who knew Heidi had wings? Her 100cm round could’ve qualified her for a Marvel franchise. Meanwhile, no one knew who was doing what anymore. We watched each other from hilltops like Olympic scouts, shouting encouragement and semi-accurate test calls from 200 metres away.
And the rosettes. Oh, the rosettes! They kept coming, like thank-you notes from the gods of perseverance.
Epilogue: We Came, We Saw, We Smelt Awful
By the end of it all, we were knackered, slightly grubby, but smugly triumphant. Breeches: greyish. Spirits: high. Horses: stars. Humans: mostly still upright.
Area 17 – you threw wind, rain, drama, and dressage at us. We threw back Pimm’s, pluck, and some frankly epic showjumping turns. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Until next year… bring a bucket full of shavings. And maybe a trailer that doesn’t leak.