Max hits the Podium, Trig Point gets a Ribbon and more points for Freddy, More horses arrive..

Before getting to our local event at Floors, a bit of tidying up from Aston-Le Walls..
Three horses went down to compete, with Freddy in the Intermediate, and Bally Cassidy and Sky Rhode in the Novice.
Sky Rhode came 16th, and Bally 28th, but Freddy produced an impressive Double Clear to come 5th and take home 4 points. Made the yard points total 20, with Mistral 12, Freddy 6 and Trig Point 2..
Freddy Curtis was also upgraded to a Grade 2, the first upgrade of the season.

Floors Castle
Its all about Caroline’s Butt
The local event for us with roughly a 30 minute drive to cope with
NBR had agreed to sponsor fences in all classes (the NBR Eventing Seat in the Novice) which allowed the commentators Tim Finch, Andrew Spalding and James Oakden some latitude, though the “jumping Caroline Powell’s Butt” seemed to give the greatest opportunity.

The Programme
Minor glitch within the programme as the advert for NBR Eventing was excluded, which did cause a bit of a stir.
The organizer too was rather perturbed when he discovered, and was able to extract the final proof of the programme where our advert was on page six.
Somehow this had managed to be replaced by an advert for rooster potatoes. My focus has now shifted to the printers Meigle, and this isn’t the first time they can be criticised.
To his credit Jamie was suitably apologetic and we did find ourselves with extra lunch tickets, and the advert on the Notice Board. The final proof sheet certainly helped to apportion blame.
Otherwise the setting remains excellent with a normal number of trade stands and the view from the bank allows excellent viewing of both dressage and more importantly cross country where a large percentage of the course can be seen. Still sense a lot more could and should be done with this event though the point about the ground being too hard in August because of its gravel base seems a valid one.

We attended on both days
Weather lovely on Sunday, but a couple of hours of driving rain on Saturday afternoon certainly made the going a little slippy.

Runners
Saturday - Stonedge – BE100, Bally Cassidy – Novice
Sunday – Sky Rhode – Novice, Trig Point- Novice Regional Final, Freddy Curtis- Intermediate
Sharon Lindop also came down to see Bally compete, and there were a steady stream of local visitors to the lorry.
Stonedge takes pride of place, with a better show-jumping round to match a good dressage, and a very impressive clear round inside the time.
As a result he achieved his best BE 100 result with a second place, just behind Emily Galbraith. The Parkyn’s came to see him at Scone, and this show jumping display was the bit that was missing there. A good result.

Bally was less cooperative though I had been expecting a lot worse in the dressage, and thought his 41 was a little harsh.
He had two fences down showjumping, both uprights (similar to Stonedge at Scone..lack of concentration), but clearly showed his scope doing the cross country, where although he incurred 15.2 time faults he had plenty more in the tank and never looked in any difficulty. There were only 15 clear out of 36 runners in his particular Novice class on the Saturday evening. Bally is pictured at the Trakener which caused a number of problems.

Sunday
The Novices on the Sunday clearly paid some attention as the attrition rate was less, but it was also drier.
Sky Rhode was first up, and again I thought the marking was a trifle harsh as he came in with 40.5 in the dressage, without looking as though he had done anything much wrong.
He was unlucky to roll one pole in the showjumping and came home with 7.6 time faults to finish 18th in a tight field.

Trig Point having had four weeks off, with a lack of an ideal warm up, was entered in the Novice Regional Final, the first of two bites at it, with the second option being Aske.
There were only sixteen starters, but some serious competition for the four places. Trig Point’s dressage was much better than his previous attempts and he didn’t put in the flying changes.
Unfortunately he spooked in his final approach to halt, which marred what otherwise was a much better test though may not have felt so at the time. His 30.9 even after a 4 for the last part, showed a welcome return towards the right form. There were five score under 30 (two very good ones from Ruth Edge), and a clear was probably going to be needed in the showjumping. He jumped very well but clipped the first element of the treble which ended up making the difference between fourth and eighth. The cross country round , as one would have expected form this calibre of field, had many inside the time, and there wasn’t the scope to catch up. As one can see below he wasn’t hanging around as he neared the finish. Nevertheless this is beginning to look a repeat of last season where he took four events to settle after the winter, and then really clicked into action in June. We also haven’t had an arena till mid march and I think that still has a some bearing, though is working its way out of the system. Definitely signs of life from the big man.
Next stop Hexham, then his first one star at Burgie, with the NRF at Aske to follow (when I will be on holiday).

Freddy Curtis was the last up in the Intermediate, and this wasn’t one of his best dressage tests. The wind and the flowers had unsettled him, and despite best efforts it was difficult to get him back. His 38.6 seemed slightly generous and there were no polos for him on his return to the lorry. But Freddy is a trier (maybe that was the case for dressage) and he produced an unbelievable show jumping round to go clear without ever looking like he would hit anything at all. He was one of 10 clears in a field of 32 and his third clear out of the last four outings.
In the cross country he also jumped well to come home with 5.6 time faults, similar to that at Aston and a level that Nicky is working to. Again he is pictured nearing the finish.


He ended in 14th, and still claims a couple of points to boost his total to 25. He is up for sale as this seems the right level for him, from the experience we have had so far.. It just remains to see whether we can translate his excellent flatwork at home into the dressage arena in competition day.

Points
So the yard total reaches 22 with Freddy now up to 8 for the year, Mistral remaining on 12 and Trig Point 2.
Next events will be Hexham, followed by Burgie, and the Young Event Horse starts to loom.

New Arrivals
The yard has seen a new arrival sourced via the Parkyn’s again.
An interesting six year old out of Luso, Artic Soul promises a fascinating 18 months of education as he is an ex racehorse.
After three days traveling he didn’t look his best on arrival, but work is already underway. First outing might well be an intro at Strathallen
As Iona will be part owner she has now joined the ranks of BE Members and may prove to be Nicky’s most demanding owner yet.
Fiddlewood, owned by Mary Grant, has come back to the yard too for some more work, and it boosts the total in the yard technically to 12, with 10/11 stables
There has been a bit of jiggling and one or two of the horses are on the for sale list so the numbers look set to reduce again quite quickly. Nevertheless its great to see the yard in full use.

Event Owners Blog from Scone

A Ribbon for Flying Freddy "the Rocket Cob", A win for Fiddlewood and a ribbon for Stonedge..

A trip north for the weekend with a return trip to Scone.
Originally the plan had been to run four horses but NBR had a late request from Mary Grant, the new owner of Fiddlwood for Nicky to take the ride.
So the full squad was Fiddlewood (BE90), Stonedge and SkyeRhode in the BE100, Bally Cassidy in the Novice and Freddy Curtis out for the second time in a week at Intermediate.
We were staying at Gleneagles, which clearly offered better opportunities for an anniversary dinner than Burger King had done the week before ( a requirement). A number of local gardens also kept Mrs Kerr entertained.
There were no fewer than six owners being represented, and we arrived mid afternoon on Saturday. We even had breeders in attendance.

So there has been rain …
This was the first event we had attended this year where the tractors were required to drag lorries out, if required (needed in some cases), and after recent rain the ground certainly had some give.
It’s amazing how different the conditions can be both further north and further south. We have been wanting some rain to help the arenas progress, and was wondering where it had gone.

Another well organised event
The event was professionally laid out as always and the fences on the cross country course certainly provided a good challenge at all levels. It was also interesting the see the course designer actually tackling his own fences. The dressage location was as before, and the show jumping had been moved slightly to cater for a slightly larger area for stalls.
The programme was also fairly comprehensive but the aerial photographs from Burnham Market still have the edge.

The showjumping does require further comment though. The course design and degree of difficulty was more akin to a pure showjumping competition rather than part of a three day event, something that had attracted significant comment from various of the top riders during the course walk and was born out in the rounds themselves. I had a better chance to look at the Novice and Intermediate courses. In the Novice class there were 25% clear rounds with 15% in the intermediate classes and even a score of 100. The time set was also fairly tight, ensuring that some who had gone clear ended up with time faults. This wasn’t like Aske 1 last year where simply breathing on a fence was enough to knock it down, in an undulating arena, but it certainly was a stiff test, and was another reason for feeling reasonably pleased with Freddy’s performance.
The whole event does seem to have taken a step up since the last visit and certainly seems worthy of holding the Scottish Open Championships as a replacement for Thirlestane. There was certainly enough of a challenge in the various disciplines to make riders and horses think.

NBR NEWS
First up was Fiddlewood on Friday with Mary Grant asking Nicky to take the ride in one of the Intro classes.
Both Nicky and Mary were delighted when Fiddlewood led the field home to lock in the Yard’s first victory of the season.

We arrived on Saturday in time to catch the tail end of the BE100 classes with Sky Rhode and Stonedge involved.
We had missed Sky Rhode’s dressage and Showjumping but caught half of Stonedge’s test which looked reasonably accomplished. Both scores were reasonably similar in the mid 30’s
I had the opportunity to meet his breeders who then looked on as Stonedge proceeded to have two of the easier uprights down whilst showing amazing scope with the spreads.
Both then had very impressive cross country rounds, clear inside the time. Sky Rhode came in 14th but Stonedge grabbed his first ribbon at BE100 coming in 9th.

Sunday brought the Novice and Intermediate, with Bally Cassidy’s first attempt at novice. We were too late to see Bally Cassidy’s dressage including an impromptu pirouette, which is a move that I don’t think features in the new test. What he did right he did well, but some of his other parts clearly need some work, as the owner, Sharon Lindop, was able to see looking up from dressage writing at the CIC2*. He only had one down showjumping which was a very good result, in a class where there were only four clear rounds, and plenty in double figures. He also did himself credit in the Cross-Country with only 8.8 time faults, a round made even more exciting by a part of the bit breaking half-way round. He ended up just outside the ribbons in 11th , but all three disciplines clearly showed his potential.

We are able to see both Bally Cassidy and Freddy Curtis at the Logs in the pictures below..

Which brings us nicely onto Freddy. After an unsettled start to the season when he seemed to have the concentration of a flea, his mind set has undoubtedly improved and this was he first time we have effectively run him back to back at the same class. The novice at Lincoln was followed a week after by the intermediate novice at Gatcombe, but in both cases he wasn’t really mentally attuned. Burnham was also tricky, but I'm pleased to say that the improvement at Belton carried on here. His dressage was mid 30’s again. The showjumping was a particularly tricky course but to his credit he jumped really well, and it was a shame he just had the last fence down. In the end there were only two horses clear in the class inside the time, which reflects well on him.
He really tried on the cross country course too and visibility is such at Scone that we were able to see large amounts of the round, except the upper loop. Perhaps Freddy’s picture above can be used to market Scone 2 ..it certainly gives the impression of what is required to tackle the course. He came home with 11.26 time faults to slot in 7th. Given the complexities in both the Showjumping arena and Cross Country this was an extremely good result for him and his best at intermediate level.

The NBR team then went back to the lorry for a celebratory drink, where I had the opportunity to meet both Mary and Cameron Grant and Sharon Lindop. Lets hope for many more opportunities.

Other items
This is probably the first time I have actually seen the designer of a cross country course actually ride it as well, and Ian Stark slotted in 6th one place above Freddy. It was very interesting to see some of the lines that he took at certain fences compared with some of the others. It was also good that Emily Galbraith survived a rotational fall at the 3rd without too much damage, as I was able to catch up with the whole family including Emily after the round. We had actually been discussing that particular fence before she started, and noted that the course designers had already taken five inches from the width. It had actually ridden very well up to that point, and thereafter and in this case the horse simply wasn’t cooperating from the start of the round and come into the fence with no forward impetus. It is clear from the picture below that the photographer’s were present at this fence. Also featuring in the Novice class was Debbie and Tony Whalley’s Merikano making it into the points for the third event on the trot. Certainly a six year old to keep an eye on.

So how did we do and where next?
NBR came away with three ribbons out of the five competing, and there was certainly reasonable cause for encouragement all round.
Next up for the yard in addition to some potential horse shopping, will be a trip to Aston Le Walls with Trig Point, Bally Cassidy, Freddy Curtis, and Sky Rhode.
We are running Trig in the Open Novice to give him some dressage variety ahead of the NRF at Floors. He does have two bites at the cherry but we obviously would like to qualify at Floors as it is on our doorstep.
The other runners at Floors include Bally Cassidy, Stonedge, Freddy and Sky Rhode.

The blog looks set to be absent from Aston but will make its return for the two days of floors, and we are still waiting to see if Trig point will do the CCI 1* at Tattersalls the week after.

Already one looks at the initial plans for the year and sees how one needs have built in flexability.


Thanks again to James and the team at Scone. Well organised and we are looking forward to Scone 2…(if plans don’t change)..

Thanks too to all the eventers who have donated towards Iona’s climb up the Eildons which is due next Saturday.
Its not too late!!.. http://www.justgiving.com/ionakerrsponseredrun