NICOLA WILSON endured a mixed weekend at the European Cross-Country Championships in Scotland, but the London Olympian was able to leave with a smile on her face as she celebrated another silver medal in the team competition.

A difficult day in the cross-country saw Wilson and her mount, One Two Many, incur a hefty penalty for a run-out at the second element of a double in Blair Castle’s main arena.

With William Fox-Pitt not even able to complete the cross-country course in testing weather conditions, the British team headed into the final show-jumping discipline with only three members of their squad able to score points.

But Wilson, who is based at Morton-on-Swale, near Northallerton, got the show-jumping off to an excellent start, and with Pippa Funnell and Kitty King also excelling, the British team claimed second spot behind the winners Germany.

Wilson was the first British rider to enter the show-jumping arena, and while a misjudgement ahead of the seventh fence resulted in One Two Many having a pole down, the pair recovered to produce a faultless finish to the round and incur just four jumping faults.

“I put him in an impossible position, but what a super horse for jumping and very nearly jumping me out of the saddle,” said Wilson, who also claimed a team silver medal at London 2012.

“Going through my head was, ‘There’s only three of us – you’ve got to stay on’, but we regrouped and he picked up beautifully and finished the rest of the course really nicely.”

King entered the ring on Persimmon needing to produce a clear round to claim the silver medal, and the pair obliged with an excellent display of composed jumping.

Yogi Breisner, the world-class eventing performance manager, said: “On the whole, I’m very pleased with the performance and delighted to win silver. A lot of positives have come out of this to build on with our preparation for next year.”

Germany took the team title, with France claiming bronze. Individually, it was a German one-two, with Michael Jung taking gold and Sandra Auffarth winning silver. King was fourth in the individual standings, with Wilson finishing 27th.