Bermuda's top equestrienne, MJ Tumbridge, has given herself the perfect boost ahead of this month's Pan-Am Championships in the US.

Tumbridge, the reigning Pan-Am Games gold medallist, took second place over the weekend at the British Intermediate Championships during the Doubleprint Festival of Eventing at Gatcombe Park, in Gloucestershire.

Riding her eight-year-old mare, Ginger May Killinghurst, whom she hopes to take to Maryland for the upcoming Pan-Ams, Tumbridge finished second behind Britain's William Fox-Pitt on Tom Cruise.

Fox-Pitt completed a memorable double as he also won the Open Championship on his 17-year-old horse, Stunning.

Tumbridge is not able to defend her Pan-Am Games title this summer as the Games, currently being held in the Dominican Republic, do not include three-day eventing.

However, medals will be up for grabs at the Pan-Am Championships which will take place in Maryland.

While UK-based Tumbridge prepares to head west, four of Bermuda's other riders were flying in the other direction over the weekend, bound for Germany and the finals of the FEI/PSI Worldwide Dressage and Show Jumping competitions.

Catrina Adcock and Philip Correia will compete in show jumping, Paula George in dressage and Kristina Gibbons in children's dressage.

Competition was due to start yesterday and continue until August 10 at a facility run by Performance Sports International (PSI), a company partly owned by former top international Paul Schockemohle.

Horses are being provided for the 60 riders by PSI, one of the major suppliers of competition horses in Europe.

Bermuda's equestrians qualified during competition held locally in 2002.

Adcock and Correia placed first and second in show jumping events which featured other riders from the Caribbean. And in dressage, George competed at Prix St.George level, moving high enough up the final results to be selected after both the winner and runner-up opted for the Pan American Championships.

Gibbons placed first in the local children's competition.

According to Bermuda Equestrian Federation president Michael Cherry, the trip to Germany "probably marks the first time that one country has had four competitors reach the finals," which attracts riders from all over the world.