A PERSHORE sharpshooter has become the country’s top woman clay pigeon shooter at the first attempt.

Lucy Righton, aged 26, of Hill, near Pershore, was named top lady on sporting targets at the British Side by Side Championship, seeing off competition from all over the country.

Lucy, who usually shoots using an over-and-under gun, won the prestigious title using a family heirloom, one of a pair of guns that originally belonged to her great grandfather, one of the members of the former family firm of E G Righton and Son, auctioneers of Evesham High Street. It was the first time she had taken part in the championship.

A clay pigeon shooter for nine years, Lucy said: “I needed a new challenge and encouraged by Paul Colley, a fellow clay shooter from Elmley Castle, near Pershore, I went for this.”

She comes from a farming background and it was when she was in her second year at Harper Adams College that she decided to take clay pigeon shooting more seriously.

She became ladies’ captain at the college before she qualified as a land agent. Lucy is well known on the local clay pigeon shooting grounds, where she gives tuition part time at Throckmorton and the South Worcestershire Shooting Ground at Upton-upon-Severn.