Ten advanced rides in the OI sections today at Barbury for Tim and Jonelle and it was also ESNZ Owners Day, hosted jointly with Keyflow so there was a tent with cake, coffee, lunch, wines, gin, all the essentials for a great day organised by Ginny Loisel and super cook Beaney Davidson.
We built the tents yesterday in glorious sunshine, mostly in T shirts and marvelling at our luck not to be frozen on the Barbury hilltop in March. This created a very false sense of security as it was obvious from today that anyone who was there yesterday seriously under dressed today. On Thursday barely a breeze fluttered the bunting, today the tent was more like Apsley Cherry-Garrad’s Antarctic base in The Worst Journey in the World. The sides were zipped up, the blurry plastic windows were welcome and outside the sun gave up and the wind blew incessantly hard and it was, to say the least, cold!
Jonelle, as we know, hates the cold and she arrived at every phase bundled up in a massive pale blue puffer coat. Her morning starters were Chilli’s Midnight Star (Ollie) and Hiarado (Jools). Jools actually did a better test than at Tweseldown but scored a 30 today and Ollie was bright for his first start this year for a 33.6. Jonelle arrived at the showjumping warm up determined to keep her coat on but when she failed to persuade Tom McEwen to do the same capitulated and removed hers for Ollie’s round. Ollie is the true ring professional and he had his game face for a smart round with just a rail off an oxer down which Jonelle took squarely as her fault. Although her claim that she “deserved to take it out by the roots with a ride like that” was generally attributed to mild hypothermia and not taken too seriously.
Jools doesn’t have a ‘game face’, just a grumpy face when she is jumping….there is not a single photo of her over a fence without her ears back. She’s not grumpy at all, it’s her version of concentrating as she loves nothing more than to jump and she bounced around the track with her trademark clear round and as always didn’t disappoint.
Tim’s morning starters were Happy Boy and Jarillo (Milo). Happy was his usual obliging self in the dressage for a 26.4 and Milo’s 29.3 was attributed to pure sabotage from Cosby Green who managed to forget that Milo is horse shy and rode directly at him in the approach to her own arena. Since Cosby is based with Tim and Jonelle it could be considered, Putin like, as an act of aggression but since Cosby also suffered two bangs to the head at Moreton last weekend it was generally considered a symptom of mild concussion.
Happy then jumped a superb clear round in Barbury’s generously proportioned main arena but incurred 3 time faults. Since Tim rarely goes across cross country with less than 10 time at a one day his irritation at being, somewhat unjustly we did all agree, accorded 3 time, resulted in his taking it up with the judges. Since judges rarely, if ever, admit to making a mistake it was fairly pointless and the 3 time remained much to Tim’s annoyance. Hence Milo, after a very brief warm up which was necessitated by the warm up being very busy (and Milo’s issues), went into the arena and practiced speed derby riding with some impressive tight turns and a couple of inside lines. Milo jumped beautifully, Tim exited smugly with no time and equilibrium returned.
Riders today were unanimous in their appraisal of Barbury’s first springtime track. The footing was perfect on the old turf, the course ran switchback over the side of the hill and used the uphill pulls to offer great runs and despite the wind it was good to have yet another dry event. Jonelle ran Ollie for a steady 10 time for his first run back since his colic scares last Autumn and let Jools bowl along at her own ‘comfort zone space’ for 3.2 time and the sole rosette of the day for 4th. Tim added 10 time to Happy’s score and some 13 to Milo’s before they donned dressage gear again for the next six rides.
Jonelle had Senor Crocodillo (Diego) out for his first start, Capitaine de Hus Z (Alvin) for his second and a wildly excited Grappa Nera (Grape) for her first run back. Diego scored a 32.1, Alvin a 32.7 and Grape a 43.6 which was totally expected and the fact that she stayed in the arena was a total bonus!
Tim had Falco, Viscount Viktor and Vitali for his afternoon spin and Falco strutted his stuff for a 25, Viktor a 31 and Vitali his usual pro self for another 25. To be fair to Viktor there was allot going on with the cross-country on the hill above the dressage and a busy warm up and he doesnt have the experience of the other two as yet.
Down at the showjumping things were running behind….another casualty of the new rule of running to allocated times instead of using common sense….but Jonelle and Diego jumped a super clear, Alvin won the warm up again but this week backed that up with a classy clear and Grape was delighted to be in the jump arena for a classic clear round.
Tim and Viktor jumped a round which had a couple of rails but it wouldn’t be Viktor’s perfect scenario with the cross country running alongside the warm up. Normality was returned for Falco as he jumped a foot perfect clear and Vitali continued his 2025 good form with a solid performance to deliver another classic clear round.
Jonelle skipped around on her three adding between 8 and 17 time and Tim ran Viktor round for 19 time and then got progressively slower as he ran his more mature horses. Falco hacked around for 26 time and Vitali might have stopped to admire the view from the top of the hill for 37 amid mild surprise he wasn’t lapped by some young pretender. Still, its the memory of 3 unfair time for Happy in the showjumping that will haunt Tim tonight!