Scone, Central Scotland 2

Sunday 10^th August

We attended the second day of the Scone event with the weather being relatively grim over day one and poor overnight.

Congratulations to the organisers led by james Oakden for putting on the event in the face of fairly adverse conditions, and the weather did its best to brighten things up on Sunday with quite a bit of drying sun with the occasional very very heavy shower. They gave the chance to riders desperate fro qualification scores and the ground actually turned out the be quite reasonable on the cross country course. The

The Pre Novice classes were cancelled, an understandable decision as they were being run over the same courses that had been churned up on Saturday.

We had set out of the road at 05.30 with Nicky half and hour ahead, and had been able to warn at least the Galbraiths not to set off with their pre novice horses.

NBR’s runners for Sunday

Trig Point : Novice and Cherry Law: Intermediate Novice

We also had the opportunity to see two of the Young Rider Short listed at Gatcombe putting their horses through their paces, as well as several others for Charlotte Agnew, and regulars this season such as Nicola Wilson and Craig Anderson. I will be able to see the actual Young Rider final trial as we are down at Gatcombe to see Freddy and Trig Point in action

The tractors were busy but the course held up extremely well considering the conditions. Dressage was a bit squelchy but the sand base helped considerably. However the ground at thirlestane was already causing severe concern in the lorry park as to what might be going to happen and whether various classes should be dropped. The FEI europeans start the event off and the weather forecast is pretty grim for the early part of the week. I can already see a number of classes at risk, and anecdotal comment suggested that if the portable fences hadn't been pinned they would have floated off down the leader last week. Drainage has always been an issue at Thirlestane and the long range weather forecast (poor) will give the organisers a huge amount to think about.

It also didn’t take long for the tragic news from Hartpury to feed through, and clearly gave cause for reflection amongst all present.

The event

After six weeks lay off Trig Point needed the outing and a dressage of 31 showed slight rustiness but was broadly pleasing given the squelchy noises emerging as he went round, to be lying second . The showjumping went very well and he came in with a clear round, which teed him up nicely for the cross country.

Several adjustments had been made to the course after the may event which caused large scale eliminations at both waters. In particular the skinny after the second water was moved back a stride, and after comments the last time an alternative was put in, but it seemed to be rather a long way from the actual fence, and would lead to a fairly high time penalty if used.

Two downhill fences had to be taken out, due to the ground but the rest of the course rode well. The optimum time was extended from 5m 25 to 5m 31 , reflecting the tricky conditions and the slight deviations from the course. In fact, the two fences taken out removed some of the more difficult obstacles.

Trig Point had incurred a technical elimination at the water last time out so we were keen to see that not happen again, and Nicky felt that she might need to keep the momentum going to ensure that he got inside the time. As it turned out he found no problem with the ground at all and actually managed to incur 1.6 reverse time faults which was to cost him victory, the spoils going to James Hamilton. It is only the second time in her career that Nicky has managed to incur speeding faults, but on this occasion there may well be some benefits too. The ground clearly wasn’t an issue for him, but there were only three Novices inside the time, and one other had a speeding ticket. Seven of the intermediate novices and four JRNs also were inside the time out of the 61 that completed. At Aske Trig Point was three seconds quicker over the Novice course than Freddy Curtis and again he proved what a deceptive stride and smooth technique can do.

He gains five points for coming second and so is now upgraded to Intermediate, as he has 21 points.

Certainly his coming of Age at Hexham, Catton, Aske and now at Scone indicate that he is ready to move to the next stage, though we are not quite sure how that will manifest itself. The CIC* at Gatcombe is the first stage in that process. The dressage scoring is consistently better, in three of the last four showjumping rounds he was clear, and he simply made a nonsense of the cross country at Scone without having to be pushed, and following good performances at the other events. It may take time to bed himself in at the higher level, but he certainly has done himself justice in the last four events. It was actually quite instructive to incur those time faults cross country this time as we can actually put his performance into context.

Cherry law came 9^th in her Intermediate Novice with a slightly temperamental dressage in a couple of elements, and a couple of fences down showjumping, but a good cross country round.

Both move on to Thirlestane

Points total for the Yard

Points for the Yard are now up to 55 for the Year which is now one behind the 2004 total of 56.

We also have another change in the points leader for the year as Trig Point has now edged back in front of Cherry Law

Trig Point 21, Cherry law 20, Mistral 11, Freddy 2, Stonehaven Lady B 1

Also Mistral, Cherry Law and now Trig Point have all now been upgraded to Intermediate, just leaving Freddy a bit behind. Watching him a Gatcombe you feel it wont be long before he makes the garde too.

A quick word about the Young Riders.

Both Charlotte and Emilys horses seem to be working well and putting training to good use.

Timing came fourth for Emily in the Advanced-Intermediate (which involved a rather rapid brushing up of the dressage test). They only flicked one off showjumping but looked very impressive otherwise, and had 16 time faults cross country after an absolutely torrential downpour had made the going sodden.

Charlotte’s Out of Africa Two sailed home in the Intermediate class by 9 points with only 4.8 time faults cross country an impressive dressage and clear showjumping.

She also won the advanced intermediate with Little Beau to round off a successful weekend.

Next stop for all is Thirlestane, though with the current forecast virtually everyone I spoke to was fearful of how many, or few classes will actually manage to be run.

The feature clearly is the FEI Europeans and the Scottish Championship and it wouldn’t make a huge amount of sense to destroy the course before the climax of the event on Sunday.

It remains to be seen how dire the conditions are as the week progresses.

Lets hope the blog can make it into action again next weekend.