Northland's Kelly Wells-MacClure sits atop the pony club world after a faultless individual victory at the 50th Jubilee pony club national championships in Palmerston North. Wells-MacClure, riding Flyway, won the A1 (17-21 age-group) overall prize after leading the three-day event from the first day on Friday, with a great ride inthe dressage. A double clear in the jumping phases of the event over the following two days earned her the overall prize. The 20-year-old, competing in her last pony club nationals, can add the overall A1 prize to her overall DC (under-17) title she won a few years ago. Her dressage performance helped the Northland team of eight riders - four A1 class and four DC class - to win the overall dressage trophy for the first time ever in the province's 50-year history. "It's good to walk away with a trophy or two especially because it's the 50th jubilee of New Zealand pony clubs and also because Northland will host the nationals next year," team manager Karen Frost said. Frost and the rest of the team's management had high hopes of an overall victory, until the second day's cross country event turned out to be disastrous for the team. "The cross country took out 50 percent of the DC team's riders, unfortunately that's a sad indication of how tough the course was - and it shouldn't be like that," she said. The A1 team saw one of its riders also take faults on the course, otherwise the team, who all completed the show jumping leg clear, would have picked up more silverware. The next best Northland rider in the overall category was Emma Fraser, who took a very creditable fifth in the A1 division. Frost said the team was happy with its success in the competition and its coaches Sheenah Baker and Warren Deane deserved special praise for the way they had prepared their riders.
