A lull in the spells of awful weather we’ve been experiencing lately allowed us to get what should have been the sixth in the series of training sessions, and it turned out to be quite exciting.

We started with thirty riders split into four groups at one minute intervals which went something like:

Group One: Mark Walker, Peter Fielding-Smith, Paul Shepherd, Paul Drop, Ben Bell, Nick Rogers and later Andy Faichney.

Group Two: Dave Millson, Charlie Carruthers, Jason Young, Matthew Johnson, Richard Vickers, Glenn Harrison, Nick Fairfield, John Barratt, and Shaun Nicholson.

Group Three: Mark Robinson, Andy Smith, Phil Tillison, Steve Green, Stewart Fraser, Malcolm Johnson and Matthew Oglesby.

Group Four: Olivia Tomlinson, Richard Dean, Victoria Hood, George Leighton, Mike McLeavy, Mark Russell and Dave Hudson.

I may be a bit mixed with the last two groups but I’m getting a bit better at who’s who.

Al went well for the first few laps, apart from the groups starting a little faster pace than they really should. Nevertheless, there seemed an absence of wind and everyone seemed to be settling down harmoniously when the unexpected happened. A hunt was taking place at the same time and we crossed paths. I’ve come across hunts often on a Saturday morning around Rise Hall but never before have we had more than the odd horse rider during the training sessions; right back to the early seventies. The nearest was a hare-coursing set whose dogs brought one of the riders down badly.

Now we had fifty or sixty horse riders, some young some old, all enjoying themselves along the same roads that we were using. Geoff, who was marshalling at the T junction near Burton Constable, said he heard the clopping of hooves and baying of dogs along the Flinton road well before they reached him. I didn’t hear of anyone meeting the dogs so they must have been in the fields, the riders, however, had to pass the horses and a contingency of following cars for quite a few laps. I was marshalling at the Sproatley junction where everything came to a halt for quite some time – except for our riders who cautiously managed to get around. The hold-up, apparently, was that the field they wished to cross was ploughed and they had to get permission to go round the field before they could all cross the road. The lap times went to pot but here’s the first half dozen:

From all accounts, the behaviour of everyone, horse and bike riders alike, was exemplary and all I talked to said they’d had a good session. I was unfortunately a little short of help and have to thank Geoff Griffin and a couple of parents on whom we had to ask assistance.

Jim Sampson