ONE of the Island’s leading carriage drivers, Nicola Blandin, has recently qualified for the 2008 National Carriage Driving Championships at Windsor Great Park after winning the intermediate class at the inaugural Welsh National three-day event at Carmarthen in Wales.

Blandin, assisted by her husband Kerry, with a relatively inexperienced Welsh section B pony, Carrwood Acclaim, for whom the Welsh National was only Acclaim’s second outdoor competition said afterwards: ‘We took Acclaim to a club competition in June to see how he would cope.

And after finishing second in an earlier competition, we decided to enter a national event with the view of giving him experience in a bid for next year’s championship. We weren’t looking to qualify and certainly did not expect to win our class.’

However, win their class they did, after three days of tough competition in dressage, display style, elegance and obedience of pony. And despite Carwood Acclaim’s relative inexperience, the combination of Nicola, Kerry and Acclaim proved their worth.

Nicola Blandin driving Carrwood Acclaim at the Welsh Nationals assisteb by husband Kerry