Inverness-shire showjumper Lucy MacAngus and her riding horse mare Bodette were crowned the 2014 Grand Masters at Kingsbarn.
Making a seamless transition from coloured fences back into the show ring, the partnership have enjoyed considerable success this year.
“I just bought her in January and we have evented and showjumped her since,” said Lucy, who runs her own stable yard in Inverness.
With the aim of competing across both working hunter and showjumping spheres, Lucy re-introduced the eight-year-old to the show ring earlier this season.
“She has come home with a championship on every occasion that I have taken her out,” said Lucy.
Bodette, sired by Well Hit II and bred out of Juliette, competes as a riding horse but also topped the foreign breeds ring at the Masters show at Kingsbarns.
No strangers to the show centre, they took an in-hand championship at Kingsbarn back in the Spring.
They were supreme horse champions at Sutherland Show, having won across both the ridden and in-hand equestrian entries, and were also champions at the Black Isle.
“She’s a very sweet mare,” she said. “But she was very highly strung when I first got her, so it has taken time and patience to bring her on.
“Now she is always improving,” added Lucy.
Before Bodette was purchased by Lucy to jump, she had already forged a highly successful career in the showring.
Formerly produced by Team Skelton, from Wick, during her first season in 2013, she won as a novice and was placed second in the small riding horse HOYS qualifier, standing reserve champion, with James Munro.
She then progressed to qualify for HOYS, top two Royal International Horse Show classes, and also achieve top five placings in all of the HOYS qualifiers that she contested during 2013 – resulting in recognition from the Tag La Liga awards for consistency throughout the season.
Sports horse champion Jack Sparrow took the reserve Grand Master title for Kerry McCready, from Oatridge, West Lothian.
It was only the 10-year-old KWPN gelding’s third outing of the year.
“He’s had a year off due to my work commitments, which has done him the world of good,” said Kerry, a calf specialist for Roadhead Farm Feeds.
“It has really given him time to mature both mentally and physically.”
A successful dressage horse, he is trained to medium level and has contested affiliated BE to novice and elementary.
In his limited outings to the show ring this year he has been champion at Carnwath and took a championship under saddle and a reserve in-hand at the Festival of Champions.
“His next party will be at the Festival UK finals in October,” said Kerry, who has co-owned Jack for the last five years alongside Neil Sutherland.
“He loves showing and it is really helping to improve his dressage,” she added.
Fife rider Felicity Baker and her 11-year-old coloured gelding Alfie Moon III were drawn forward by the judges to take second reserve.
The former Grand Masters, who topped the supreme championship at Kingsbarns in 2012, have also had a relatively quiet season to allow Felicity to graduate from Dundee University and progress into a PGDE in primary education.
From their base in Ladybank they supported their local shows at Fife and Central and West Fife, taking intermediate and coloured championships at the former and the coloured championship at the latter.
They were second in the intermediate show hunter class at the Royal Highland and took a trio of championship rosettes at Doune and Dunblane, topping the intermediates and the in-hand coloureds and taking the reserve as a coloured ridden.
Masters organisers praised the support of Greenwells, Carriages for all Occassions, Tilly Tack, Hadden Farm Services, Avonmill and Babbithill for sponsorship of the show which they said has gone “from strength to strength”.
Praising the “excellent turnout of high quality of horses and exhibitors” they said it is their intention to run the championship show over two days next year.
The show season culminates at Kingsbarns on October 12 with an ‘end of season’ event.