A member of Great Britain’s gold medal winning team at the European Eventing Championships will be competing at this week’s Weston Park three-day event.

Yorkshire’s Nicola Wilson heads the entry in the top class at Weston – the last major international in Britain this year which starts tomorrow – the Rookery Park Stud CC two star.

The second rung up on the international three-day event ladder, the class has attracted a strong field to the venue near Shifnal, led by Wilson, who is fresh from her medal in France.

She will ride her up-and-coming mare Goulton Eugine, and Weston has regularly proved a happy hunting ground for her.

Sixth in the CCI two star back in 2005 on her European partner Opposition Buzz, Wilson was also fourth two years ago on Master Banks.

Her main challenge may well come from Malpas rider Polly Stockton, runner-up at the four-star Burghley event in September on her rising star Westwood Poser.

This time she rides her partner of the past three seasons, the 10-year-old gelding Lyall, who is as yet largely unproven at this level but did go clear cross country at the two star Barbury International one dayer in July.

Abigail Stock of Malpas, who works for and is trained by Polly Stockton, is among the locals challenging for the Young Rider title.

She will partner’s Polly’s ex-ride Miss Haversham, with whom she won the Tattersalls two star international in Ireland earlier this year.

“I haven’t done a lot with the mare, who is owned by Masra Smithers, since Tattersalls but we did do the Blair Castle two star in Scotland, finishing 16th,” said the 19-year-old.

“I was pleased with that as we were last to go cross country in difficult conditions – the ground was very bad by then and we had to go carefully.”

A quartet of local youngsters have been selected for the Wales & Borders team due to compete in the KBIS Junior Regional Novice Championships, also staged at Weston for riders aged 13 to 18.

They are Telford’s Alice Walker, who is in her first year on horses and rides the six-year-old Thin Ice; Ellesmere’s Rosie Rickett on The Painter, who completed Weston’s two star event in 2007 with Gilly Read; Enville’s Harriet Thompson with Masters Gamble and Holywell’s George Sturla, on Stirling Gardella.

By KATE HEALEY