THIRSK-BASED Lucy Holliday has returned from the Young Riders European three-day event championships in Portugal with a team silver medal.

The talented 20-year-old, making her first appearance on a British young rider team, rode her nine-year-old grey mare High Times. She admitted to being "disappointed" with her mark in the opening dressage phase, but more than made up for that with a great clear cross-country.

Her mother, Mary Holliday, said: "Lucy had a really good round over what was a fairly technical and quite daunting cross-country course.

"The course was most difficult at the beginning - fence four was a decent fence in water and there were lots of arrowheads and combinations where you needed to be very accurate.

"Overall it rode quite well though and Lucy was one of ten riders to come home clear and be inside the optimum time."

The Newcastle University student had just one show jump down on the last day, when clear rounds proved elusive, to finish 15th overall and help Britain into silver medal position.

Mrs Holliday said: "Lucy had a plank off fence six, which was catching a lot of horses out. To come home with a silver medal on her European debut was very good and the atmosphere was great at the championships."

The weather was quite extreme for late September, with intense heat which meant some of the horse's autumn coats had to be clipped to help them cope.

Mrs Holliday added: "The flies and mosquitoes were a problem too, and the riders particularly got very bitten.