I am very grateful to Sara who rushed home from a busy day at Sheriff Hutton to pen this review while still in her boots and tweed jacket, here it is hot off the press - thank you Sara!
The Yorkshire Area P2P Club meeting went ahead successfully on Sunday 29th January, having been postponed due to frozen ground earlier in the month. There were sighs of relief all round this morning when despite a wintry scene the course was passed fit to run - and boy did they run! The horses coped with the chilly weather admirably, however, the racegoers were left hopping from foot to foot in an attempt to warm up. Of course that was no problem for us on the AGA stand as this was truly AGA weather!
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| Sara and the AGA - both looking fab! |
We had baked chocolate brownies, home made cookies, flapjack and something which Michael said resembled birdseed (home-made energy bars sprinkled with sesame seeds!), all of which went down a treat. Along with hot soup and coffee - we weren't going to be put off by a few degrees of chill!
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| The gent on the right is not keen on the "birdseed" |
We were warmly welcomed by Charlotte and Emma, the most glamorous double
act I have seen - and I had to ask, yes they are twins. They helped with advice
such as judging best turned out and they introduced us to the owners of the runners - to whom we gave £25 vouchers before the AGA race, gratefully received and soon to be
spent! They also helped us with the presentation of the prizes - photos to follow tomorrow.
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| Mud, no problem, we're from Yorkshire! |
Mrs Tinkler and son Andrew - who had zoomed up from Cheltenham where he was in action yesterday on festival trials day, joined us to explain about the form, and they also gave us some tips on reading the race card ... so we were now all set to pick a winner. Except that's
not necessarily how it works in point-to-pointing, which is why it is such
fun.
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| Tinks about to go through the card and tip every winner ... |
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| Pre race - smiles all round and clean breeches! |
The AGA Ladies Open race was a hard one to predict with some strong contenders,
including recent AGA winner Sea Scout, however, we
were on Easterby turf today! Jacqueline Coward - granddaughter of Mick, was
in sparkling form holding off all challengers on Amicelli to score her first points of the season.
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| The classy winner Amicelli and connections |
Sea Scout and Claire
Metcalfe had to be content with second place adding 6 points to the 10 she won at Alnwick, while Sam Drake on Optimistic Harry
claimed third place adding 4 more points to her tally and moving her to 8 points on the AGA Total Control score board. Another Easterby granddaughter, Joanna Mason, rode Impact Zone into a very respectable 4th place, earning her first points of the season in the process.
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| The girls "bouncing on to the stand" |
That's not a bad return for Mr Easterby - 2 places for 2 granddaughters ... there must be something
in the genes, or maybe the water around Sheriff Hutton?
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| Mick Easterby and the girls! |
The lovely ladies bounced on to our stand after the race to receive their
prizes and were delighted to try on their new AGA "I'm In Total Control" polo shirts and pose for the
camera. Michael was heard to comment "who wants to share a picture with Jeremy
Clarkson when you can be in a photo with all these lovely ladies". We take his
point!
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| "I've still got it?" |
Thank you to all at Yorkshire Area P2P Club, we had a brilliant time, met
some super folks and put AGA firmly on the map in Yorkshire!