University of Brighton equestrian team coached at Plumpton College by equine lecturer Debbie Melville started their competition season well with their home competition taking place at Plumpton College on Wednesday 30^th November.

Four other universities competed in teams of 4 with Brighton University winning by 122 points over all and the team gaining individual 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th placings, an excellent result.

Riders compete on horses they are not familiar and are assigned a horse by a draw from a hat. Riders only have up to 7 minutes to find out about the horse before riding a dressage test, they then ride a second horse with only 5 minutes to get to know it before jumping a round of show jumps up to 90cm. Riders are scored on style and accuracy accruing penalties for any faults in both dressage and show jumping.

The team are working hard to see if they can beat their result of last year of maintaining an unbeaten team in the region and bettering 4^th place in the countries nationals.