AN amateur showing enthusiast from North Devon has qualified her rare-breed Dartmoor Hill pony for the prestigious Your Horse Live SEIB Insurance Brokers Search for a Star Championship at Your Horse Live in Warwickshire this November.

Clare Alderman and Barramore Pinky Pie, known as Pinks, won the SEIB Insurance Brokers Search for a Star In-Hand Plaited Pony qualifier on June 14 at Royal Three Counties Show in Malvern, Worcestershire to earn their qualification.

Clare and Pinks will now go on to compete under the bright lights of the Main Arena at Your Horse Live this Autumn.

Clare said: “We are flying with it today! Pinks is a Dartmoor Hill Pony, I bought her as a foal wild off the moor and it’s all my own work done with her to be here now, she is an absolute superstar. Pinks is now four, we’ll break her in over the winter. She caught my eye when I first saw her and we’ve shown since I got her and improved all the way. It will also be great at Your Horse Live to bring her to represent the Dartmoor Hill Pony breed. As a child I did lead rein showing and then ridden hunters before getting into ponies.”

Clare and Pinky had already taken second place in the Coloured class and then Reserve Champion of Coloureds earlier in the day at Three Counties Show. They also qualified for the CHAPS (Coloured Horse & Pony Society) Championship back in April this year at the South West CHAPS Regional Show in the Home-Produced Amateur Grassroots Final.

Dartmoor Hill Ponies are semi-wild, ancient equines that have roamed Dartmoor National Park for several thousand years.

Despite being on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust Watchlist, the Dartmoor Hill Ponies population is currently facing severe threats due to changes in government grazing regulations.