Eight pupils from John Kyrle High School competed at Addington Manor Equestrian Centre in Bedfordshire for the NSEA (National Schools Equestrian Association) Championship’s from Thursday, October 17th until Sunday, October 20th.

They qualified for the championship’s at different venues during the last 12 months, with only the top two teams and top four Individual’s qualifying.

With over 300 schools qualifying from all over the United Kingdom competing at the National Schools Championship’s over the four days JKHS had a successful time.

On Thursday 17th October, Archie Thomas age 12 competed in the 70/75cm Jumping With Style Championship Class as a individual. This is a mixture of 16 showjumps and cross country jumps in an arena, and overall came 14th out of 51 individuals.

Evie Bennett age 12 competed in the 80/85cm Showjumping Championship Class as an individual in round one she finished second putting her through to the jump off where only the top eight go through. Evie rode a fantastic round getting placed seventh overall out of 80 competitors. Verity Wallbridge age 15 also qualified as a individual coming a respectable 42nd.

On Friday, October 18th, the 70/75cm showjumping team of Archie Thomas, Lara Marshall age 14, Lucy Evans age 11 and Zoe Whitehouse age 14. In the first round they all rode brilliantly fast clear rounds leaving the team in 1st place, this meant they would be the last team to jump off in the final. In the jump off JKHS came 2nd team overall out of 37 teams. All of the team rode fantastic missing out on first place to Millfield school by 0.52 of a second. Then there was a huge gap of 15 seconds to the third placed team King’s Gloucester.See the full story in this week’s edition of the Ross Gazette, or subscribe to our online edition here