Natural Selection
Devilish weather and dastardly targets confounded many competitors at the English Sporting England Selection Shoot at Westfield in early April, reports James Simon
It was a surreal sight. A gentleman, dressed in a sun-bleached polo shirt and red shorts, was dusting the snow from his gun slip as he prepared to shoot stand four. Minutes later, competitors in full winter garb were loosening collars and stripping off layers as the sun beat down from a blue, almost cloudless sky.
Few were prepared for the fickle weather, and even fewer were ready for Steve Lovatt’s skilfully set targets at this first ESP England Selection Shoot of the year. Paul Batchelor and Miles Machin were untroubled, taking joint high gun with a very respectable 93 ex 100, but much of the rest of the field were left scratching their heads, wondering what on earth went wrong.
Steve Lovatt’s Westfield, a Clay Shooting Company ground, is usually a delight in the spring. A slow, careful drive down a rough farm track gradually reveals a ground that’s beautifully incorporated into the Cotswold landscape. Its honey-coloured stone clubhouse is hunkered down in this land of green, rolling fields, pockets of ancient woodland and hand-built stone walls that stretch as far as the eye can see.
But at 9am on Saturday 10 April there were grey, foreboding skies and I was finding it hard to see beyond the drizzle on my windscreen, and the temperature gauge on my dash insisted that it was a chilly 2ºC.
Sunday was even colder, with almost blizzard conditions at times, but at least the sun made a regular appearance. Was this really April? Little did I know then that we’d all be questioning much more than the weather by the time the weekend had drawn to a close.
Cunning course setting
Steve is well known and much loved for his cunning course setting skills. An expert at using the landscape to befuddle and confuse competitors, he’ll have you convinced that a slow clay is travelling fast and a near target is actually some way out. True to form, this England Selection Shoot was another masterclass in illusion. The course of 12 stands radiated up the southern slope of
the valley in which the clubhouse sits. The majority of the stands were quite open, but at least three or four were tucked away in woodland or beside hedges, which gave Steve the opportunity to mess with our perception of speed and distance.
“Shoots are getting softer, more predictable,” said Steve, “so my aim is to set a course that’s fun, fair but tough. I do that by using the contours of the land and other natural features to make shooters question what they see.”
Stand one, which was by the hedge at the back of the clubhouse, featured unremarkable crossers but the second target was heading towards the hedgerow. “This made many competitors believe they had less time to shoot it, or that it was travelling faster than it actually was,” confirmed Steve. “They needed to ignore the hedge and just concentrate on the clay.”
Stand two, a classic pair of simo incomers, was littered with unbroken clays – it caught a lot of shooters out. “The ground here is very open but rising slightly up and away from the shooter, which makes it hard to judge distances. Depending on the breeze, these targets were often closer than they looked, so it was all about timing and knowing exactly where to place the second shot.”
Stand three, a teal and overhead bird, was technically difficult. “I noticed all kinds of things going wrong here,” said Steve. “Some were trying to shoot the teal too quickly, while others were trying to shoot it as it dropped but then struggling to get the gun back up in time to shoot the overhead bird.”
Stand four was another pair of straightforward crossers, but the topography made it hard to judge lead.
Stand five was in an elevated position, looking down on a rabbit. “Because the rabbit was heading towards a stone wall competitors were inclined to panic, thinking they were going to run out of time,” said Steve. “And, because they were looking down on it, they tended to shoot under it. It was actually quite a straightforward shot but easy to overthink.”
After five tricky stands Steve eased the pace somewhat with an easy going-away simo pair on stand six.
The pressure was back on stand seven. “This caught people out all weekend,” smiled Steve. “A closely spaced right-to-left simo pair that looked slower than they actually were. It was all about timing and lead.”
There was no respite on stand eight, either: a driven pair off the big tower. “The first shot was curling through the air, so if you turned too far it would be almost impossible to hit the second target,” conceded Steve.
Stands nine and 10, positioned in woodland along a disused railway track,
were relatively easy but stand 11 was a bit more devious. “We’re now halfway down the slope on the way back to the clubhouse,” said Steve. “Still in the woodland but shooting out over open fields. The first target soars out from behind a tree, creating an illusion of speed and compelling some competitors to shoot in front of it. The second target, a leftto-right midi, was less challenging.”
Finally, Steve set stand 12 as a classic, painless crosser. “It’s a nice, easy end to the day’s shooting,” grinned the course designer. “I don’t want anyone to leave here on a bad note, so I purposely plan feel-good targets for the final stand.”
Strong performances
Joint High Gun Paul Batchelor shot late morning on Saturday, through intermittent drizzle and a strong breeze. After a promising start it almost went pear-shaped.
“I straighted stand one, but then moved on to stand two, where the wind was blowing the simo pair back quite strongly,” remembers Paul. “I shot pair kill, pair loss, pair loss, pair kill, missing four targets there and then. I recall thinking that’s going to make the rest of the day hard, but I managed to dig in all the way around, missing only another two or three targets.
“I’ve heard that people struggled on stands three and four but I managed to straight them. The targets were reminiscent of old targets that used to be set. These days we’re used to targets that require you to be so steady with your gun but these were big targets that you could put a nice gap on.
“It felt like a proper shoot this time. I’d like the opportunity to represent my country again, but it’s early days so let’s see how the next selection shoots go.”
We caught up with the other High Gun, veteran Miles Machin, on Sunday while he was sheltering from one of the many snowstorms before shooting stand seven. He was in good humour despite the weather. “It’s going OK,” he volunteered, well aware that at that point he was only halfway round.
Hannah Gibson jointly led the Ladies with 82 ex 100, which she shot on the Saturday. “It’s a brilliant course,” said a positive Hannah, “but tough. It’s a selection shoot, so it should be challenging. Fortunately, I’m able to put the last stand I’ve shot behind me without dwelling on the score too much, which enables me to focus on the next one.”
Matching that score was Emma Stacey, shooting on the Sunday with her father, Shaun, who scored a respectable 89 ex 100. “It’s been challenging,” said Emma, “but, like many, I haven’t shot for months.”
“It was a hard start to the round,” agreed Shaun, “and very cold. Still, the sun’s out now so it’s impossible not to enjoy it.”
Josh Bennion shot early on the Saturday in squad four, alongside coach Nick Hendrick. Both appeared disappointed with their performances but, in hindsight, they shot well. Josh took the highest Junior score with 89 ex 100, with Nick just behind on 87 ex 100.
“The round really didn’t go well,” said Josh at the time. “I dropped four targets on stand five together with another seven here and there throughout the course. There’s nothing wrong with the targets, it’s just that we’re all a bit rusty.”
“Some clown booked us at 9.24am,” grinned Nick, “so we had a really early start this morning. Perhaps that’s why I’m not feeling it today.”
A selection shoot like this attracts some of England’s finest talent but even the big names found the going tough. Not that they blamed Steve or his course. Instead, there was a universal sense of relief and gratitude that the worst days of the pandemic may be behind us. Yes, the course was challenging and yes, everyone was out of practice from not having shot in months. But every competitor, from colt to veteran, was delighted to be back out there again.