Having missed a couple of events through holiday before getting to Aston we should catch up briefly with results from Aske and Eglington.
At Aske Cherry law came 10th in and Intermediate and Trig Point was 19th in an OI. The following week at Eglington Cherry law stormed to third in an Intermediate picking up 8 points, Stonedge fired himself to second in the Novice picking up 5 points and an upgrade to Grade 2, and Arctic Soul impressed at Novice though took time over the cross country with some longer alternatives.
That took the yard to 59 points ahead of Aston.
This was the first time I had been to Aston and what an excellent viewing platform for the advanced cross country, and what a field to see.
That is getting a little ahead of myself, and I will get there in due course.
I drove down in the Thursday with Nicky going down for pathway training the day before and stayed at Colledges in Staverton, only 10 miles away and a very pleasant B&B.
The entries
Novice –Arctic Soul and Stonedge
8/9 Year old Advanced- Trig Point
There were over 80 in Trig Point’s class and more than half the Advanced Horses in the Country were in evidence across the advanced entries with riders coming from as far as Aberdeen.
There will only be two advanced competitions north of York in 2010, with both being in Ayrshire. One hopes that there can be a few more in 2011. It was good to catch up with a number of riders and owners that we hadn’t seen since early spring, and after this weekends result we hope to be seeing more of them.
The Novices competed on Friday, with Trig point’s dressage on Friday and the rest of his competition on Saturday.
The Showjumping white board I had heard a lot about and it was interesting to see it in practice.
There appeared to be absolutely no problems whatsoever in the arena in the two days that I was there, and the multiple riders were slotted in in a way that was easy to understand, (and there were a number of them to cope with). After each set of five horses there is a multiple rider box, to allow them to slot in. This seems to work very well.
Cross country
The cross country viewing was excellent for the advanced with only fences 8-12 not being visible from the viewing mound for the advanced.
The Novice did require a little more running to see the course. There was also some difficulty with the first water where a number of riders came unstuck. Fortunately both the NBR horses handled it comfortably.
The dressage arena did seem somewhat remote, and may have contributed to the somewhat sluggish arrival of the scores. They were painfully slow in arriving and on the first day of competition the prize givings were held without the sponsors, which seemed a shame, and the final scores in the advanced dressage test were actually seen being filled in by the judge who was helping out.
That was only thing that really marred what was otherwise an excellent opportunity to view top riders.
Novices
Arctic Soul was first up, and after a very very long walk to the dressage arena (which might be one of the reasons why the scores were a little slow returning).
There were around 100 horses warming up when he appeared, clearly not ideal warm up conditions, and Nicky had to play a percentage game given his tendency to get a little fragile in the past. As it turned out he got a very respectable 34.5. His showjumping was tidy in the main but did manage to knock a couple of poles, which were easy to knock down. However his cross country round was simply excellent and a dabble on the accelerator pedal after the fourth saw him eating up the ground, and getting admiring looks as he motored to an optimum time. There were only a very few novice clears inside the time, and for Spike to do this in what was only his third outing at the distance was impressive. He also didn’t look particularly stretched. Lots more in the tank.
Advanced
Trig Point had also begun his class with an impressive dressage which left him lying 14th. In his class the dressage was on an all weather surface.
The showjumping was to prove the discipline that caused major problems, and it was extremely easy to find four faults turning into 24..
There were a number of horses who missed out on qualifying scores as a result, and any tap of the poles proved extremely expensive.
He didn’t jump badly but inexperience at this level brought three taps and three fences down, and so he moved onto cross country with an additional 12.
For this run Nicky didn’t wear a watch and let him gradually wind up the pace. He looked very impressive and came home with 10.8 time faults in 6.29 and ended up in a creditable 27th.
Importantly it gave a qualifying result for Blenheim 8/9 CIC3* should everything go all right in the intervening events.
Also congratulations to Nicky on completing her first advanced event for 6 years.. we hope for many more.
The cross country time wasn’t achieved by many but Andrew Nicholson put in a string of excellent rounds peppering the optimum time. With such a good viewing course and a stopwatch it was easy to see where the time was made up. He is pictured here tackling the steps.
Lucy Jackson was one of the best through the combination at 16, something that both surprised and pleased her immensely.
A number of others caught the eye and with half the advanced horses in the country registered and virtually all the top riders it made for a fascinating days viewing.
It was good to see Gemma Tattersall winning the Under 25 class with another accomplished performance on Kings Gem, who showed no sign of any lack of concentration, while a number of other younger riders came unstuck just towards the end of the round. Angus Smales must also be commended on his string of clear rounds in the showjumping. That wasn’t easy to achieve.
Overall an encouraging weekend and an important barrier crossed.
The yard gleaned another 5 points to move up to 64, but also gained important qualifying scores. Stonedge now with 25 points heads away from Novice, and Arctic Soul has become a Grade 3.
Overall Totals for the year so far..
Stonedge 25
Trig Point 20
Cherry Law 10
Fiddlewood 6
Rare Hero 2
Arctic Soul 1
Where next
Strathallan sees Watts Burn, Rare Hero and InishMhor compete in the 5yo, Intermediate Novice and the 4yo (and possibly freddy who is back with Nicky)
Gatcombe sees Trig Point entered for the Intermediate Championship Finals
Scone – although the entries aren’t confirmed yet, looks like 5 or 6 horses heading up to James Oakden’s event
Blair – not entered yet but looks to be Stonedge and Trig Point
Burghley Young Horse Finals – Inishmhor and Watts Burn both qualified
The blog should return for Gatcombe..
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