Burbage Summer Sharpener 1

Burbage Summer Sharpener 1 on Wed 5th Jun 2019

When I’m setting out these courses, I always aim to ensure it will take more than outright speed to win the race. If I’ve got it right, the winner will of course be fast, but they will also have made the right choices and shown navigational savvy. So, no disrespect to the whippets but it was very satisfying for me to see Neil return from injury and put so much distance between himself and his chasers. I hope Neil drew just as much satisfaction from such an emphatic victory, using a control configuration that only two others emulated. For my money, he pretty much nailed the optimum route. Control 2 was much easier to locate and attack from above, and coming off it downhill allowed a powerful striding descent to the packhorse bridge. Finishing with a drop to 3 then allowed a quick hack across the stream to pick up an easy path back up to the car park. Current whippet-in-chief Tom surged round in style, but on a very different route. His decision to endlessly reinspect Control 2 meant that Callum nipped in for third place. Powerful performance from Kirsty as first woman. Let’s see if the decision to double the female beer prize produces a bigger field from the girls in the next race. Times were generally a bit faster than I expected, so I might have to push up the gnarliness for the next one.

DH