The Festival of British Eventing..
And what a Festival it was too, despite the weather on Saturday morning bringing back memories of the rain and snowswept Little Gatcombe of late march that had to be abandoned.
The weather improved spectacularly and the competition remained of a high standard throughout though we had to depart before the Cross Country finale to the Open, for the drive back North.
Hotel
After staying at the Salmon’s very pleasant B&B last time, we shifted to the Cotswold 88 Hotel which turned out to be a major success. The reviews had been mixed and focused on the boutique design element, which has its upsides and also downsides, especially if the designer isnt a hotelier. The website perhaps also reflected this. Fortunately a few weeks before our stay the hotel was actually taken over by people who actually can run hotels, and there was very little to fault, (and completely different to the reviews we had read). The website will be updated shortly. It used to be the Painswick Hotel.
The Event
Competitors: Freddy Curtis and Mistral de Blondel in the Novice Final
We actually arrived on Friday afternoon to get our bearing, though we were too late to see the Dressage on both Mistral and Freddy doing their tests, more of which below.
The Roncoroni team had a change to the groom to give an extra driver to the team ready for the return to Hendersyde with the very experienced Cara, who had groomed for Pippa Funnell stepping in for lisa.
Supporters. In addition to my wife and daughter who had come down for the event, Harry Philips, one of Freddy’s other owners was able to attend, as were a number of Kerr cousins with their families who swelled the Showjumping support group to 15.
Location
The location of the
The car parking for the owners was also up by the lorry park which necessitated a longer walk or a shuttle service. The distance wasn’t a particular problem, although we did park much closer on Sunday in one of the other car parks, and it did make visiting the stables and the lorry for other younger guests a bit trickier. However I would say that the distance was a problem for those with multiple rides, as the timing between rides was often set fairly tightly, and on a number of occasions it simply wasn’t possible to return to the stabling area. There were several riders swapping horses in the warm up area, and in Freddy’s case it certainly wasn’t perfect preparation, and it took some time to get him settled enough to go into the main arena. With 100 entries in the Novice and big numbers in the other classes surely it is possible to have the rides slightly more spread out than 30 minutes for showjumping and 40 minutes for cross country in a major championship.
Hospitality
The hospitality areas surrounded the showjumping arena, and we certainly enjoyed use of them, though the toilet facilities seemed spartan compared with those provided at other events. The space in front of the hospitality and sponsorship areas seemed extremely cramped and if they had moved a few of the tents from the row behind they could have created more room to move, and a greater area to watch from. During the intermediate showjumping on the Sunday I became slightly concerned that the horses might even be tempted to jump into the EHOA area rather than tackle the first element of the treble which was close enough to touch from where I was sitting.
The Dressage
Same location as for the Little Gatcombe events. Little really to add other than it was a fairly major detour for spectators away from the rest of the event.
The Showjumping
The arena seemed in a fairly compact location, and obviously the undulating terrain severely limits where it can be sited. It certainly wasn’t anything like as uneven as Aske, which if anything proved good preparation for Mistral. The competitions themselves provided compulsive viewing, though not as much for me as the Cross Country was. The courses themselves were fairly stiff, as you would expect for a championship
The Cross Country
Now this was something else, and I suppose the inverse of Blair which goes up a hill to come down, but the trees there don’t permit nearly as much of the course to be seen.
The whole scale of the Park Bowl complex is amazing, which is aided by the excellent viewing. However the TV coverage (which was excellent by the way, and makes it much easier to follow what was going on) doesn’t do justice to the inclines and descents, and once these have been walked it puts a whole different perspective on things. Although we were in the Novice class,
One thing that might require further attention is the ground in the water, where certainly both in the Novice and Intermediate classes remedial work was required after deeper holes started to appear and horses began to lose their footing. It contributed to a number of riders coming unstuck.
The Trade Stands
A great range of trade stands and some old favourites beginning to appear consistently, from which I can get a reasonable idea of the mood of the event,
I would say that the takings seemed better here perhaps that at some events I had attended earlier in the season, with belton perhaps being the exception.
Travel luggage and clothing seemed to be going fairly well, and I would say that most trade stands felt they had done reasonably well given the economic climate.
The crowds seemed large too, but the cross country course could certainly absorb them
Entertainment
Lots of entertainment on view as well , from the Shetland Grand Prix, to the Cossack Riders.
The owners reception was also excellent and gave me a chance to catch up with a number of people
Excellent to see Dee Kennedy making such a good recovery, and we even had an opportunity to congratulate the newlywed royals who were acting as the event hosts with Captain Mark Phillips being at the Olympics. Also bumped into a number of others at various stages of the two days, with Les Smith appearing from Hendersyde to be at the Gatcombe while Olivia Haddow and Nicky had gone the other way.
The Novice Championships
Dressage
Both Freddy and Mistral did their dressage on Friday as we struggled south through heavy traffic. We were never likely to get there anyway, but this is probably where the lack of match practice showed up, even with quality training.. Through a combination of balloting and weather we certainly had not had as many runs as we would have liked, and both horses missed out completely in July. The Intermediate at Auchinleck would have given a good warm up. This was only Freddy’s second Intermediate as a result.
Mistral was 69th after dressage with a 36.3 and Freddy was a more distant 78th with 38. Both clearly have done, and will do better, and I will be interested to see the difference through Thirlestane, Blair and Little Gatcombe, weather permitting. There were simply too many good riders and horses on lower scores to really make an impression on the leader board, but to give Mistral his due he certainly gave it a good attempt.
Showjumping.
With lots of family watching (and a classic photo-synergy picture shows us in a row all watching) Mistral did a fantastic clear round, though Nicky had to work very hard at a couple of fences. Freddy was harder work and had the last elements of both trebles down, which were both downhill, and was badly distracted at the second last, and so had three down. Otherwise his technique over single jumps was excellent, and could easily jump higher. Plenty to work with.
Cross Country
Nicky discussed how she would run the cross country given their positions with us before setting off. In particular she wanted to keep the horses under control for the downhill sections, rather than let them pull (see below), and keep them steady. Both horses did extremely well and went clear Mistral with 5.6 time faults, and Freddy with 8.4. Freddy was allowed to bowl along and took the jumps easily, and Nicky would be quite happy to put him over an advanced track on that showing. We just need to get all the other bits going at the same time.
Mistral climbed 44 places to end up 25th ( a rerun of Houghton) and Freddy rose up to 56th.
The winner Brook Staples came out of the same qualifier as Freddy at Aske, and was an excellent ride. Several riders did find the footholes in the water, and there were a number of high profile casualties at various parts of the circuit.
I was also fortunate to be watching some of the Intermediate class tackle the Park Bowl, standing beside several competitors (which was very useful) , and again the water claimed some high profile casualties. I could also see what might happen if a horse was let go down the hill, with no brakes, and it was only by great good fortune that one rider managed to escape what would have been a disastrous fall with an amazing leap. Their luck ran out at the second element of the water where a horse fall put paid to that round.
The standard of horsemanship here was excellent with quality shown through all classes and the leader board in each of the classes is an undoubted reflection of the outstanding strength in the sport.
An excellent event for the first time attendee to go to see the sport, (but the dressage location being so out of the way is the only drawback to being able to get a grasp of all the disciplines within easy viewing)
As an event this clearly ranks highly in terms of places to be, and one would hope that all the horses can include this on their itinerary for next year. This was also a very good overview of what we can aim at, as Nicky continues to bring Trig Point on steadily, in addition to making progress with the other two.
Nicky continues to have a busy August with
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