A RIDING world championship has been claimed by the Highstead Riding Centre, near Herne Bay.

The centre provided the backbone of the Great Britain team selected for the Saddle Seat Equitation world championships in South Africa.

Captain Alex Lockhart won the individual title as the squad finished fifth in the team event, against squads from the USA, Canada, South Africa and Namibia. Alex, 22, works at the Highstead centre with her mother, and the GB team coach, Caroline Lockhart.

Her cousins, Dan and Kelly Lockhart, from Whitstable, were also selected for the GB team, as was Highstead rider Nikki Randles, from Wingham, and Amber Young, from London, under manager Nanette Phillips, also from Wingham.

The full qualification process takes two years, including assessment by judges from America at various events.

The event is staged over four phases, two of rail work, a showing class which involves walking, trotting and cantering, and two of patterns, set programmes similar to dressage.

The challenge was increased in South Africa because the riders were presented with Morgan horses, which they had never ridden before.

Caroline Lockhart said: “We became interested in saddle seat riding at Highstead when a client brought us some Morgan horses.

“Alex has been riding since she was a little girl, progressing from the Pony Club, and began riding saddle seat when she was 12.”

She rode for Britain in the 1998 and 2000 teams, and had been the leading equitation rider in the UK for the past 11 years, winning the national championship this year.

Amber Young was also in the 2000 team, while Kelly Lockhart, at 14, was the youngest rider in the team.

Caroline Lockhart said: “The riders have had to meet the costs of competing themselves, although we have done a lot of fund-raising to try to support them.

“Saddle seat is big business in the USA and South Africa, but we would like to think this success might raise its profile in this country before the next world championship in Kentucky in two years’ time.”