Churcher's College's Alice galloping to success

Posted on 23rd Nov 2017 in School News, Sport

Thirteen-year-old and Churcher’s College 3rd Year student Alice Robinson’s love for all things horse-riding is going from strength to strength as she has been lucky enough to qualify for the London International Horse Show – Olympia in December 2017.

She shares her place in the team with Rocco Dettorri (Frankie Dettorri's son) and other famous jockey's (Leighton Aspell - double Grand National winner and Jim Crowley - Champion flat race jockey) daughters, and so is very lucky indeed to be taking part.

In order to qualify to ride at Olympia, the competitors (who must be under 5ft in height and 14 years or under) are required to win one of 8 qualifying races (Alice qualified at the Lincoln County Show earlier in the year) and race over hurdles as well as complete 2 1/2 laps of the arena. She rides a black Shetland Pony called Cranford Fantastic (AKA Zorro).

Being part of the Shetland Pony Grand National team for the last 2 years, means that she is raising funds for the Bob Champion Cancer Trust and as part of riding at Olympia she is required to raise at least £1000 for the charity.

Help Alice Raise Money for the Bob Champion Cancer Trust
The charity was started by Bob Champion having won a memorable Grand National in 1981 after battling with Testicular Cancer the year before. The Shetland Pony Grand National raised £38,000 last year for the charity and they're hoping to beat this amount this year.

You cane support Alice, who has been doing plenty of fundraising herself, by donating to her Just Giving page here: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/lorraine-robinson15

More on Alice’s horseriding successes
Alice, whose aim is to win the Grand National one day, started riding at the age of two on the family’s Shetland pony, Ian who they still have and is an active member of the Petersfield Pony Club.

She has represented them, having qualified with her pony Stripes, to go to the Pony Club National Championships 2017 in show-jumping. She was also selected for the Southern England tetrathlon (riding, running, shooting and swimming) team at the Pony Club Regional Tetrathlon Championships this year. She competes regularly in British Showjumping and represents the Surrey and Hampshire Academy team. She also qualified for the British Showjumping National Championships 2017 with Stripes.

Alongside that, as part of the Shetland Pony Grand National Team, she has spent the last two years riding at numerous events across the country including Badminton Horse Trials, Royal Windsor Horse Show, South of England Show, The Game Fair, Gatcombe Horse Trials, Pembrokeshire County Show etc. She has also flat-raced at Epsom and Newmarket.