The Festival of British Eventing - Looking to the Future and in the thick of the action..
After the rain on Thursday the event was blessed by good weather making it even more enjoyable.
One of British Eventing's youngest members, Iona, also attended her first official meeting, an EGM , and as part owner of Arctic Soul was keenly assessing the Novice course (tho he is unlikely to be seen here until 2011). We also had Trig Point's round in mind and we have her pictured in the middle of the water at the second element.
There wasn’t much time for hanging around and after watching the initial burst of dressage led off by Ruth Edge on Applejack we managed to tour the shops. As ever there was an excellent range of products though the number of stalls, and especially the Sponsored tents area showed the effects of the economic slowdown. It also must be tough especially on the Saturday and the Sunday to find time to shop, as there were so many quality riders on display in what seemed like a pretty relentless stream.
Our sole runner in the Novice Class this year was Trig Point. Mistral had qualified for the Intermediate championships but the injury he picked up doing so, ruled him out for the rest of the season. Both Mistral and Freddy had done the Novice the year before, but both were older at the stage they competed.
The Dressage late on Friday was a case of almost but not quite. Having worked in well, when he came to the actual test he seemed slightly tense and looked a little green at times. An unfortunate stumble on the slightly rutted arena at one point meant that he ended up with a score of 33.2, rather than somewhere around 30 which he could easily have produced otherwise. In the showjumping arena where Mistral had produced an excellent clear round last year, again in unfamiliar big competition surroundings, he knocked two fences down including one of the combination fences, whilst otherwise jumping extremely well.
And so to the cross country, and this proved to be a phase where he showed no signs of inexperience, and completed an excellent clear round with 10.4 time faults to end up in 43rd place. The setting combined with lack of an outing at Intermediate level since early June at Hexham, with a resulting lack of match practice probably both were contributing factors, but there was also much to be encouraged by.
Around and about..
Whilst NBR headed North to Scotland we stayed for the full event, and in addition to the enjoyable drinks, were able to see cracking competition across all classes, and we just happened to be in the right place on a number of occasions to see some of the key moments.
The corners in Advanced classes had been an early signal that this was to become a key element of the course, and jusging the line and pace down the hill proved extremely tricky. There were a number of run outs and falls, but the best paced ride through that I saw was Daisy Dick, and Spring Along who judged it beautifully as they headed to victory. We had seem Boondoggle complete an excellent dressage test earlier in the day which set them up for victory.
On the Sunday Morning there was an absolutely fantastic draw in the dressage which put a whole string of top horses in the first session.
We were able to watch Opposition Buzz (Nicola Wilson), Two Thyme (Ruth Edge), Flint Curtis (Ollie Townend), Apache Sauce (Mary King), Miners Frolic (Tina Cooke), and Westwood Poser (Polly Stockton), all before the first break. As it turned out there were four of the top six within that group.
The showjumping again gave us the opportunity to witness some great clear rounds including Headley Brittania, before she was withdrawn.
The Intermediate cross country provided a dramatic finish as Piggy French’s storming round, was just pipped by 0.1 by Polly Stockton with Andrew Nicolson just creeping into third by 0.1 with the very final ride of the day. By that stage I had invested in a riders cross country watch, and a part from the distracting beeping for others, it did give an indication of how close the competition was going to be.
The Open Championship was every bit as dramatic and there were two key areas where problems appeared. As ever the corners provided a challenge, as did some of the other fences on that loop, and the land Rover fence at the start of the Bowl. It of course went down to the wire though there were some key withdrawls. We were at the Land Rover combination when both William Fox-Pitt and Mary King had their refusals. We were also close to the start and the Bowl to see the key elements of Ruth Edge’s victorious round, in considerable pain, and she so nearly came unstuck at the water. Flint looked magnificent too in the later sections to come second, and there were so many others who could be mentioned. We had also spent a considerable time in athe area of the corners where the Open riders has a slightly different challenge to that of the advanced. Tragically we were on hand to see Cavort (Ginny Howe) break a shoulder as he fell at the second element. The close bond that the rider had with the horse was clearly evident, and was reflected in the touching eulogy on her website.
So Gatcombe provided lots of action and we hope that our horses can revisit next year.
Meanwhile virtually the full yard is due to make its way to Scone at the weekend and there are seven running (though the weather forecast doesn’t look especially favourable.
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