Event Owners Blog from Belton

Event Owners Blog from Belton - Intermediate Day
Freddy Bags a double clear!

This again was a wonderfully organized event, but as I write this on Sunday evening news has just reached me of the fatality that occurred on Grantham Cup day that puts everything into perspective.
The exact details remain unclear as yet, and I will not comment further, other than obviously passing on my commiserations to all those affected on another big loss for the sport, and the blogs are already reflecting how much Ian Olding will be missed.

Otherwise the blog has to reflect another well organized event and at least from my experience features as one of the top ones that my horses have competed at to date.

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The Parking again worked very well with the owners area just beside the lorry park. There was clearly no way that cars could have fitted in beside the lorries and as a compromise this works extremely well.
The programme was extremely informative and remains one of the best on the circuit though the aerial map included in the Burnham Market programme still looks to be the way ahead.
The range of stalls again was impressive with considerable opportunities for the non avid fan to get some serious spending in.

Some interesting feedback too on consumer spending patterns from one of the clothing outlets, and a regular contact for green shoots.
Spending so far had held up reasonably well though Cheltenham Festival had proved a disappointment. The actual cost of having a stall at the event is actually turning out to be the variable which can make or break the weekend rather than the lack of consumer demand. Last year had been reasonably good at Belton and although the Saturday had seemed relatively quiet their positioning had been better than last year.

In general there were fewer stalls and there seemed to be fewer people on what is effectively Day 2 though, as ever, there was a lot going on, with even more scheduled for day 3 .
The range as ever was impressive and I definitely felt I had not done the event justice, and needed more time.
The only niggle was with the loud music that I think was accompanying the dog display and I did feel that this was rather intrusive on the competition, although not lasting very long. It was right beside the show jumping arena and I do feel was somewhat of a distraction.

Thanks also to the riders who continue to sponsor Iona ahead of her sponsored hill climb of the Eildons for the Brooke. www.justgiving.com/ionakerrsposeredrun.com
We also stayed at the very pleasant Old Manor in Allington for the second year, and who should we bump into in the Pub for our evening meal but Bill and Barbara Laidlaw, who we also came across at Burnham Market.


So what of the competition itself…
NBR had both Trig Point and Freddy Curtis competing at Intermediate level, though we stuck to the conventional event rather than the Intermediate Futurity which was an option for Trig Point.
We walked the cross country course (great visibility for any first timer) and saw a couple of areas where certainly care was required. In particular the Bunker complex highlighted in the programme as being of interest, certainly caused some problems. More later

The Dressage test 117 featured again and again Trig Point was trying to include flying changes. He might well get 9’s for these when they actually form part of the test, but not here, and as this is the only test he has done this year to date, familiarity might well breed a little bit of contempt. He scored a somewhat disappointing 43.6 in what was a higher scoring section. Freddy Curtis, on the other hand , decided that cooperation and concentration was more in order, and actually produced a pretty competitive 35.9 in what was a pretty tough class. This was despite one horse coming into the test area and doing a 360 degree twirl on its hind legs just at a critical stage of his test. Trig Point started last year in a similar vein at Novice level and it was in June that everything clicked. I wonder if we will get a repeat, as everything is clearly there…

The Show Jumping revealed some very impressive jumping by both horses. Trig Point looked as though he was trying to clear every fence at advance level, and produced a very impressive round except he knocked off the top pole of the second element of the double, and I was in the wrong position to see why. Freddy was clearly up for the event, concentrated hard and produced a good clear round, much to our pleasure.
Kerr Photography contributes this picture…

Over in the Cross Country both horses performed very well.
Trig Point went round clear with only 9.4 time faults and wasn’t pushed unduly, and looked very comfortable. Horsepower’s photograph was a slightly better close up than mine and gives the impression of a horse on the move (Photo at top of blog).

Freddy also gave a very good account of himself and went round clear with only 10.6 time faults and opened his points account for the season with 2.
We were much happier with this performance, and his 14th in a pretty tough class was a good return to form. He looks set to compete at Scone in an Intermediate next week.
Trig Point came 20th and its easy to see that the dressage area is the one where he is still getting used to the higher levels. Add in the fact that we didn’t have an arena for most of the winter and it perhaps isnt surprising that he hasn’t quite clicked.

Lucinda gets tired, Hayden gets lost, and Sharon halts…
We also caught up with an exhausted Lucinda Broad as she finished quite an eventful round on My Evolution with considerably longer arms than when she started, a round that actually propelled her to third place in the Intermediate Futurity. I sense a new bit coming. The showjumping was given an added spice as Hayden Hankey went awol mid round on Fernhill Fearless and a fizzing Dee was placated as she was heading off in Hayden’s direction. There was also a rather interesting 2 minute halt in the 3* dressage from Tankers Town, which I think was slightly longer than anticipated, given the hefty encouragement that was being attempted.

Points for the yard
Two points for Freddy opens his account for the year and takes his total to 19
The yard total moves onto 16 with Mistral on 12, though he will now sadly be off games for quite some time, and Trig Point joined by Freddy on two.
This time last year the yard total was only three.

Next return for the Blog should be from Scone next week, followed potentially by Houghton, though I look set to miss the competition at Aston-Le-Walls (an event I have not been to yet).

Big Guns on Easter Parade at Burnham Market

Eventing Blog from Burnham Market- Trig's flying changes, Ruth Edged out by Flint. Marriage is more expensive than eventing!

The later Easter certainly was a help, and the weather was a huge improvement on last year. We oriented ourselves on day one in the afternoon in preparation for a reasonably early start the next day.
The use of a aerial photograph rather than a map for the cross country course in the programme was a good innovation and should be copied elsewhere.
Although there had been very little rain the cross country course had been aerated well and wasn't as hard underfoot as expected. (We will cover the actual course later) There was a good collection of stalls and activities though there appeared to be slightly less than last year. The birds of prey and dog activities provided a good distraction. The quality of competition was outstanding with a whole range of top riders, many doing their final proper outing before Badminton. All made for excellent viewing.

With the better weather there certainly seemed more spectators and the ability to see the cross country course marks this out as an event worth visiting for the novice spectator.
There is also a significant opportunity to shop in Burnham Market and we were staying at the Hoste Arms which not only had good food but excellent accommodation.
The weather on day three did deteriorate significantly and the conditions became especially tricky late in the afternoon when the mist came down. This was taken late on the Friday. 24 hours later the wood was barely visible.

Many thanks also to all those who have agreed to sponsor Iona in her Eildon Hill Climb to raise money for the Brooke. For those that haven’t its not too late
http://www.justgiving.com/ionakerrsponseredrun, but she now has undoubtedly made an encouraging start,

Also there were some interesting developments on the social front.
I asked one eventer, recently engaged, about her proposed plans for pending nuptuals in 2009.
No concrete plans set apparently. On further digging, the response was “amongst other factors, things are too expensive.”
“Eventing ??” was my question … “ Oh no… Marriage” was the answer…

Many thanks to Alec and Emily Lochore and the squad for putting together an excellent event.
We look forward to the return fixture next easter and aim to be there on Easter Saturday …

So how did things go for NBR?
NBR only had two runners with Mistral and Rare Hero both being late withdrawals.
Freddy Curtis was competing in only his third Intermediate and Trig Point his second.
Again we were experimenting with the camcorder, and once the heavy breathing at the latter stages of each cross country has been muted out we may release the end result. There may well be some photos to come slightly later to augment the blog, as I was quite pleased with the video results.

Dressage
Freddy was pretty tense again for this dressage coming away with a 43.2. More interesting was trig points 37.7. He decided that he enjoyed doing flying changes so much at Equine Pathway training earlier in the week, that he decided to put some into his test. This was not a required element at this level, the requirement on this occasion was counter canter. Nicky made him do the required element properly, which he did the second time round, but the error of course and the scores of one and three for canter indicate how good the rest of the test was, and indicated another placing would have been on the cards, but for the flying change. At this stage education remains the priority and we will see what happens in two weeks time at Belton, but every reason to feel encouraged and one time where the scoreboard doesn’t tell the whole story.

Showjumping
Freddy went first and had three down, one of which was attributed to the rider (according to her). Trig point had one down (a spread in front) otherwise he jumped extremely well.

Cross country
This was undoubtedly a challenging course for early in the season and asked questions at all levels. We turned up briefly to see the novice competition, and saw a considerable number of run outs and refusals. Clearly early season cobwebs and inexperience did show. The aeration of the course helped cut the surface up. There were some considerable delays at the start of the cross country which did allow feelings to run a little high at times. The delays were caused by a couple of holds on the course, one due to a rider breaking a leg, which clearly couldn't be rushed. However it did cause a logjam down at the start, and the cross country remained behind schedule for the rest of the day. It might be an idea to provide the cross country helpers (start coordinators) with somewhere to retreat to (under cover in a trailer for example) as they must have been getting battered into submission as the day wore on trying to explain and handle the delays. We will cover the two star and three star later in the blog.

Both Freddy and Trig Point acquitted themselves well in this phase. In fact Freddy when he had the opportunity to jump out at the barrels, was rerouted at the last moment and comfortably corrected himself when others would have run out. Freddy did perform much better, not pulling nearly as much and showed his honesty round the course and willingness to jump. We obviously would like to see the same application in the other two disciplines when we get to Belton, but this was undoubtedly better than Gatcombe. Twenty time faults was a very creditable result looking down the field. Trig Point looked very much at home in what was his second intermediate apart for a slightly green moment at the coffin near the end when he got onto the wrong stride pattern. He got out of that well and looked faultless otherwise. Hard to believe he was on his second intermediate.

Results
In the end Trig was 12th and Freddy 22nd in the classes. Clearly Trig’s potential in the dressage was easy to see though and he would clearly be significantly higher up the order without the incursion into flying changes. Good outings for both with encouraging progress


Ruth Edged out by Flint
Iona and I then returned on the Saturday to see the big guns in the 2Star and the 3Star. The weather was less good, with drizzly rain which became mistier in the afternoon and altogether less pleasant which required considerable care in the increasing gloom.
The course builder had presented some interesting challenges and a number of top riders came unstuck at various stages. The problems appeared at several fences, skinny out of the water, and the bounce in, the barrels, coming out of the wood, the leaf pit and the corners, all of which we would be expected to tackle as we move up the grades. The novice and intermediate courses had certainly posed some significant challenges so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the advanced kept the pressure on .

Sharon Hunt, Matthew Wright, Chris King, Oliver Townend, Lucy Wiegersma,. Piggy French, Pippa Funnell, Coral Keen ( a crashing fall) , Andrew Nicholson, Mark Todd and Caroline Powell were amongst those who ran into problem in the 2 and 3 star, picking up a variety of penalties. Some satisfaction for the course builder. There were equally some very impressive rides and recoveries too especially as conditions worsened.
Ruth Edge rose towards the top of the leaderboard in both of the 3* classes on March Mayhem and PC Wilson. They were to finish first and second in their respective classes. However “Horse of the Day” award had to go to Flint Curtis who was on supreme form and was able to maintain a huge lead that he had gained in the dressage, through Show Jumping and a very impressive Cross Country to win the other 3* class.

NBR news from Kirriemuir
Whilst the Kerr family were still in the south, Nicky had headed North to Kirriemuir for the first season outings for Stonedge and Bally Cassidy. Both ended up 12th, in front of their respective owners and another encouraging start for the young horses. They are out again next week at Kelsall Hill, joined by Sky Rhode, whilst the more experienced team of Rare Hero, Trig Point and Freddy Curtis make their way to Belton the week after, when the blog will make its reappearance.