Having decided to stay at home for Badminton our team sat glued to the tv for an incredible days sport. It was Eventing as we all know and love it, not a dressage competition and rewarding positive attacking riding. It was a pleasure to watch Daisy Berkeley with Springalong and the amazing partnership they have, as well as Camilla Spires’ Portersize Just a Jiff, a15hh horse who looked so much fun and ate up the xc. Paul Tapner was a fantastic and thoroughly deserving winner.
Inspiration revived from that great event, we busied ourselves for a long weekend at Auchinleck. This event has been a firm favourite on the Scottish circuit for many years. It was great that the organisers managed a change in date to avoid the midsummer monsoons that have forced the events cancellation for 3 years on the trot. The courses all looked to true Auchinleck style, big bold and galloping although the second water in both the intermediate and the advanced was still causing riders some concern, due to the unrewarding distance through the complex. After a few high profile casualties in the advanced, it was decided that the fence would be dramatically altered for next year.. to much relief all round.
We had six horses entered, Trig Point in the OI, Freddy Curtis HC in the Novice, Stonedge and Fiddlewood also in the novice and Arctic Soul and Watts Burn(running for his new co-ownership for the first time) in the BE100.
Jerry produced a good test for a 33.6, in a horrendously unlevel arena and jumped an easy double clear but had a handful of time faults across country, finishing a middle of the road 17th in a competitive section.
Freddy, downgraded from the intermediate to the novice due to a lack of runs, was a fresh in his test, so was a bit down the order from the start.. A lack of communication to the 3rd in the showjumping sharpened us both up after which he jumped really well and then he travelled easily round the lovely xc track to pave the way for the two other novices..
Max was on great form throughout producing a pb of 31 in the dressage,but it was the jockey who needed a talking to after the showjumping having caused a fault when he was jumping fantastically well. He then gave me a great ride round the xc to come home with 3.6 time which was good enough to finish in 3rd place.
Fiddlewood, running for what was to be our last time out together as he was heading back to his owner Mary Grant after this event, produced a beautiful test to be close to the leaders after the first phase, he was a little tricky in the sj and had one down but then was brilliant on the xc. unfortunately the 4 faults were expensive moving him down to 6th.
Arctic Soul benefited hugely from being at the event the day befor to work and as a result was much more settled in his test, although he too suffered from being in the same unlevel arena as Jerry, all connections agreed that he had gone very nicely. This was followed by a super double clear and a final place of 2nd which was a great result for him.
The final horse Watts Burn was running for his new owners Harry Philips, Dr Lorna McWilliam and Mum Janey. He pulled out all the stops to score a whopping 17 mark better test than at Scone andhave the leading score of the weekend for our team of 30, he too jumped a fab double clear, a handful of time faults on the xc dropped him a little down the order but we were all still delighted with his 6th place, this also being his first attempt at BE100.
All in all a good weekend, though always taking home things to work on, most importantly I feel things are becoming a little more consistent rather than hitting the mark by pot luck. We are having some invaluable help in the showjumping phase from Glasgow based showjumping trainer Mark Smith, and it made a huge difference to have him at Auchinleck to work in the horses. He is setting new challenges in every session but these seem to be paying off with both horses and jockey more confident in the ring.. long may it continue!