A first time trip to Blenheim as the blogging season nears a close and what a splendid event it was.
With work commitments I was only able to attend on the Saturday and the Sunday but there certainly wasn’t a dull moment.
I was staying in a delightful B&B in Deddington, the Old Post House, and also know a lot more about Equine Manual Lymphatic Drainage with one of the first people in the UK based there.
That’s another story and one that will be worth pursuing at another time.
The copious amount of information sent through meant that one was well informed before arrival at Blenheim. The arrangements for owners and VIP’s had been well thought out, and I was particularly impressed as a first timer, to see the effort being put in by the Fidelity team as title sponsors. The pavilion down by the water seemed a really clever idea and I hope they found the whole exercise as worthwhile as they seemed to. The weather also turned out much better than forecast adding to the occasion.
The curtailed time at the event meant that I didn’t spend quite as much time going round the huge array of tradestands, as I would normally, but the range was impressive. The lorry park was also extremely well laid out with excellent stabling facilities and catering for the riders was excellent. As I said before this was a first time visit and it left an extremely good impression.
NBR had one runner, Trig Point, in the CIC3* 8/9 Championships
He had one one advanced earlier in the year, and After the long CCi2* course at Blair that had been considerable debate as to whether we should run him.
The benefit of running the cross country last and the reasonable weather and ground allowed us to make the journey down.
I had missed the dressage and would love to have seen the setting.
Trig Point had an extremely creditable test for a first timer at 3* scoring 57.2 to leave him lying 28th. Again there seemed a considerable discrepancy between the marks, but this also seemed to be a more general topic of conversation rather than just being limited to him.
The Saturday saw the CCI3* cross country across a fabulous course, followed by the CiC3* show jumping.
The cross country course had some fabulous fences which had been beautifully crafted, but it certainly was a long walk. Given the design of the course it certainly wasn’t possible to see the whole course at once , but combining certain sections of the course with TV screens enabled one to get a pretty clear picture of how rounds were unfolding.
The clearest indication of how close a horse was going to get to the difficult optimum was how they tackled the section along the top of the hill (if they got that far). There were certainly problems in all parts of the course and the technical fences at the finish captured a few more who were going well but had started to tire.
Clear rounds inside the time were few and far between. Aoife Clarke had set a very good time fairly early and looked to be moving beautifully at the top of the hill was one of the only early ones to get round and she repeated the exercise later on . Andrew Nicholson also achieved two inside the time, with the others being from Piggy French and William Fox-Pitt. Parklane Hawk cruised round the course but it was deceptive and his round was enough to reverse the positioning with Ruth Edge after dressage, a lead that he didn’t surrender in the tense climax in the showjumping arena, which took place on the Sunday . It was also good to see both Clayton and Lucinda Fredericks appearing in the top ten after very good cross country rounds.
William and Lucinda are pictured below..
Attention switched to the Show Jumping arena for the CIC3* competition. After some minor issues with the course design because of screens and sight lines from fences we were ready to get underway, Christopher Bartle kindly came over to help work Trig point in and settled both horse and rider down. Trig Point was fourth in, and this was a completely different round to the one at Blair. The stumble after the first had clearly unsettled him , but we saw none of that this time. He was very unlucky to have the first of the treble down, and jumped otherwise what was clearly his best round of the season . Certainly the benefits of Mark Smiths training are paying off. We stayed to watch the rest of the showjumping, whilst keeping an eye and an ear on the High bar competition in the next door arena , which seemed to get to shirtless and saddleless in a couple of cases. Mark Todd said it was easier to ride without a shirt than without a saddle….
No pictures of that, but a picture of Trig Point from the professional photographer which clearly showed he meant business.
Cross Country for CIC3* was done on the Sunday Morning with 6m 45 second optimum.
It was run in reverse order and Trig Point was lying 30th overnight. One or two went out of order including Applejack the overnight leader who came home with 6.4 time faults to leave the door open for the final five. Trig Point looked on fabulous form and looked measured rather than being pushed, but when getting closer to the end of the course he was opened up and seemed to have a lot petrol still left in the tank while others at that stage were starting to wilt. Add to that that he only picked up 5.6 time faults with only 12 faster than him when we hadn’t been chasing the clock was really impressive. His recovery time was extremely fast and he also has come back sound. (we did have the random drug testing to cope with afterwards to calm things down)..
He ended up in 22nd place and also has now achieved his CCI3* qualifications in a class won by Mark Todd after an excellent round on Land Vision inside the time edged him ahead of Sarah Cohen and Treason. The CCI3* qualification was starting to look unlikely at one stage this season when we seemed to be running out of events. The way he finished the season and the stamina he has showed is extremely encouraging for next season, and we will now focus on autumn showjumping and some dressage.
So NBR stayed south and heads for Gatcombe CIC 1* with Arctic Soul for his last outing of the season, and that of the blog.
There may well be a trip to Osberton for Cherry Law in the 2* and Inishmor in the BE 4YO at the end of the month but I may be unable to attend.
There may not have been any points for the yard, but the trip to Blenheim was extremely worthwhile and I would hope it is on our agenda next year.
Congratulations and thanks to all involved in putting the event on. A real success and as an owner I had a fabulous time…
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