Skegness X-Fest 2008 review and results.

The first UK Horse surfing Competition.

The weekend started at 10am on the saturday for the warm up and Practise day. On the first Day we had Luis and Tossca from Hilton Horses and Of course Rohan from Independent Horse. Surfers were not in short supply on account of there being no wind. It was Toscas first day on the beach but his perivous towing experiance paid off and he didn't put a foot wrong.  The warm up went on untill about 1pm. 

On the Sunday we had two new horses arrive from Julia and Kelly west by the name of Bolaro and Hurrocane. 

Speed Over Land. 

This Was a steep learning curve for all involved not least the horses.  Unfortunatly the soft sand and eager horse riders lead to a competition littered with false starts and heavy spanks. The first successful complete run was By Samantha Hilton-Jones and Luis towing Tom Kilroy with a very steady time of 18 seconds. There next complete run was 12 seconds although tom was unable to keep the board for the other two runs. 

One of the most spectacular crashes was from Arran who hit a soft bit of sand leaving skid marks of about three meters and an impact mark four meters from that and a total crash distance of about ten meters. There was also some sincronised fauls starts and falls.

 As the Comp went on Lane A had to be abandoned as it became unpassable So the semi and finnal were run on times in lane B. The Fastest time of the falling to Kelly west on Hurrocane of 8.97 seconds 

Speed over water.

The Surf was really getting up by now coursing difficulty in hooking Up.

Unfortunately this led too lots of problems for the more inexperienced teams and after the first couple of runs Bolaro and Hurricane where pulled out by team west as it all got a bit too hectic and hurricane had snapped the bungee connecter used by team west, in a dramatic false start.

So the competition was now open to Rohan from the Independent Horse and Louis and Tosca from the Hilton horse team.

All three Horses performed impeccably with Louis getting a good start every time

Rohan and Tosca however both getting one false start each,  one of which nearly pulled Daniel Fowler Prime off the Rohan completely. These two horses however where just too fast for Louis steady dependability. Which starting calls for false starts to be given a time penalty and for an aggregate time to be decided. Something that was agreed to be considered over the wither period.  

With a Demonstration of excellent horse riding control at the hook up point Charlie Spence combined with the raw power, that had seen Tosca spank his board rider in every race of the speed over land class, where now able to post the quickest time of 10 sec with Rohan coming in second with 11.5 seconds.

It was then Decided that the final two classes of freestyle and freestyle-X would be cancelled as the competing horses had already done enough. Suggesting that future competitions will be run slightly differently. Giving horses more time between classes.  

Skegness X fest 2008 Results

Class	Team	Horse and rider	Board rider	Position and Points
Speed over land	Team West	Hurricane , Kelly west		1st 4 points
Speed over land	The independent Horse	Rohan , Paul Alison	Arran Topham	2nd 3 Points
Speed over Land	Hilton Horses	Louise , Samantha Hilton Jones	Tom Kilroy	3rd 2 Points
Speed over Land	Team West	Julia West	Ben	4th 1 Point
Speed over land	Hilton Horses	Tosca , Charlie Spence	Martin Roberts	5th 0 Points

Speed over Water

Class	Team	Horse and rider	Board rider	Position and points
Speed over Water	Hilton Horses	Tosca , Charlie Spence	Martin Roberts	1st 4 Points
Speed over Water	Independent Horse	Rohan ,Daniel Fowler-Prime	Arran Topham	2nd 3 Points
Speed over Water	Hilton Horses	Samantha Hilton Horses		3rd 2 Points
Speed over Water	Team west	Kelly West		Retired
Speed over Water	Team west	Julia West		Retired

Over All

Class	Team	Horse and Rider	Board riders	Position over all points and National Points
Over All	The Independent Horse	Rohan , Paul Allison , Daniel Fowler-Prime .	Arran Topham	1st 6 Points 4 National Points
Over All	Team West	Hurricane Kelly West		Joint 4th     4 Points  1 National Point
Over All	Hilton Horses	Tosca , Charlie Spence	Martin Roberts	Joint 4th    4 Points    1 National
Over All	Hilton Horses	Louis Samantha Hilton-Jones	Tom Kilroy	Joint 4th    4 Points    1 National      Point
Over All	Team West	Bolaro , Julia West	Ben	5th 1 Point    0 National      Points

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