BRC National Championship Lincoln Aug 25
By Georgia Norton

We are… BRC National 2025 Overall Introductory Dressage champion! Considering 2 years ago we had our first visit to these champs and was 18th out of 20 in my class and last year we missed out as Brian was having surgery, I never expected a win like this!
Even when my mum said to me, a few years ago “that will be you one day!” ( we always think our mums are wrong but she was right)

We started the day at 2am for a 4.5hr journey up, as my work despite many conversations, wouldn’t give me any time off to travel up Friday. When that alarm went off I did question my sanity, I thought I’d given all these the early starting shows a miss for the foreseeable.

Getting your passport checked no matter how many times I do it always makes me feel stressed, but we got the all clear, grabbed a bacon roll and started getting ready. I’d got the wildcard qualification in the introductory and qualified in the prelim due to Brian only being 1 month into his rehab post surgery when the qualifiers were happening back in June, I didn’t want to push him.

We warmed up and he felt so chilled and relaxed possibly a bit tired from the journey 🙈
We only worked in for 15 minutes but Brian flicked his toes and went mega for me to finish on a score of 74.77% and win 🥇 in the introductory (his wildcard)
He repeated the success for the prelim to finish 2nd🥈on 69.32% only 0.8% behind the winner!.
I trundled off to the secretary for my score sheets as I love to know if the judges see what I feel, to find out I qualified for a ride off ! This was against all the winners of the day. Me clueless had no idea I would have 2 hours to learn a whole new test, so off I go dancing round the lorry to memorise it.

Despite the heavy rain and 40 minute wait time, he made me the proudest to finish 1st🥇 on 70.63% meaning we were now the Introductory Dressage National CHAMPION🎉
I remember standing in his stable pouring with rain refreshing the scores with everyone’s score going up before me and yet I was first to go!
Then they gave a 20 minute call for the prize giving so off we went and as just as I was about to get on they announced my score as the winning one (proceed to dance round the stable with Brian while I waited for mum to grab a rug.)

Living in my bubble we went to the prize giving and to my shock we got a rug! Ive never won a rug in my life and even handier Brian’s fleece has just ripped! So nice replacement.

Trotting round that ring couldn’t feel better despite Brian trying to canter sharing my excitement! We also came home with 3 sashes, rosettes and a salver! I felt proud to be the only Meon representative proving that being the only one didn’t stop us!

The following day walking back to the lorry ready to go home with my pony on a loose rein walking through all the stables and lorries, as cool as a cucumber I thought we really have come a long way from our last Nationals where we were tense stressed and a little bit spicy 🌶️ and regardless of the result I’d have always be taking the best pony home again.

Anyone who knows me knows Brian is my world and we’ve been on a rollercoaster of a year, so to get a result like this means the absolute world, it’s something I could have never imagined and it’s all thanks to my support team at home, and the riding club for giving us opportunities like this!

Now to float away in my bubble for the foreseeable…….