It’s a fair old hike from Chedington to Belsay which is near Newcastle, and Newcastle is nearly Scotland for reference.
Tim and Jonelle stayed up country from Aston le Walls and Jess returned to Chedington with the Aston horses before Rosie left at 3 am on the Thursday morning with the Belsay crew. It is not a venue we are familiar with as this was traditionally Chatsworth weekend but since Chtasworth suffered two washouts in a row they decided to skip a year. Belsay happened to step in for the driest spring on record which just proves Sods Law does well and truly exist.
A bit of a long weekend for a 4*S with Tim having just Chio 20 in the 4S and a well travelled novice in Indy du Loir. Jonelle has three in the 4*Short class, Capitaine de Hus Z ( Alvin) and Chilli’s Midnight Star ( Ollie) aiming for Royal Jump 4*Long at the end of May and Senor Crocodillo (Diego) for Luhmuhlen 5 star.
Dressage on Friday for Tim and Chio and he was happy with him for a 30.1 which is just a smidge shy of 70%. On Saturday he went off for a hack and turned left through a gate and found himself cantering around the edge of the most beautiful park in the sunshine and said what a pleasure that was. He then ran Indy in Indy’s second run of the year and his second ever novice around a really decent track that copied the 2*Short.
Indy excelled himself and set himself up to be a true international horse. Having bypassed soggy Bovington by the skin of his teeth (and an absent jockey) he proved himself well worthy of his first trip away by adding just 3.6 tine to his dressage of 32.5 to bring home some pennies and gain some BE points. To be fair to Indy he went out a boy and came home a man. There were some faulty tools at the beginning relating to the stop and go buttons but they ironed themselves out and Indy came home thinking he had placed in an international. For sure it was a tough novice for his second go but he was pretty awesome!
Jonelle had super fresh Alvin and Ollie on Friday and despite pre riding them never got them totally onside with disappointing scores of 36.8 for Alvin and 38.9 for Ollie. To be fair to Jonelle she has been away for the best part of three weeks with Kentucky, teaching in the US and then Badminton and it’s great that both feel so full of themselves in the Spring but Jonelle didn’t quite see it that way! Diego went on Saturday for a better 33.9 but it wasn’t touching the leaders and Jonelle was pretty philosophical about it.
Saturday ended in a beautiful sunset and Sunday dawned…. really cold! To be fair Belsay is a smidge off Scotland and it t is May but by all accounts it was properly cold under the cloud and a bitter North wind. Jonelle headed out on Ollie as the first of her rides and she did say that perhaps Ollie was a run short to tackle such a challenging 4*S. Belsay is proper up and down terrain and Ollie is not the easiest ride in that situation as he does get headstrong on the downhill runs to fences and gets a little tricky to tun right. He jumped a super show jump round apart from getting a little low coming out of the treble for 4 faults but it was educational for sure.
They jumped brilliantly around the track until the final water which was a huge ditch to log jump in with a big drop followed by a curving right hand line to a skinny in the water. Jonelle said she possibly over did the right hand turn as she was conscious of that being a slight weakness in Ollie’s make up but they ended up jumping the skinny and copping the right hand flag. Jonelle gestured to the fence judge to put the flag back in place but that wasn’t happening any time soon so she popped the alternative and came on home. Ollie thinks he jumped the fence ( which he did in his own way!) and they finished on the same page with a good run to stand them in good stead for Royal Jump.
Next out was Chio for Tim and my, has he grown up over the winter. Chio is a cheeky brat, he can pretend at home to be scared of his own reflection in the mirror as an excuse to turn himself inside out and drop Tim in the indoor after a fence but he is also pure power and if he is onside he is quite the dude. Tim said that he jumped one of the best showjumping rounds of his career and then he simply toyed with the track with nothing but positives around the way and whilst Tim had a couple of “excuse me” moments into the upright gate for example where he swung off Chio’s head for a less “Murphy Himself’ jump Chio responded with a nicely rounded agreement and it was a super round to set themselves up for the next 4Long.
Alvin was so cool…he jumped a cracking clear in the showjumping to make up for his wild dressage and then bounded around the cross country with such a great attitude. It is their first ‘big’ one together and they really looked on the same page for an assured clear.
Diego has had a few issues with shaking his head at Jonelle ever since Blenheim last year. The cause of his discomfort was isolated and treated last autumn but Diego seems to have retained some ‘muscle memory’ of it and although today it didn’t impact the fences its definitely a distraction and something that Jonelle is striving to find a way of getting past. On paper it was a good day and a good prep for Luhmuhlen but as Jonelle says, it would all be so much easier if this head shaking problem were to be resolved!
All in all the team were so impressed by the event and the amazing location. Jonelle took some fabulous pictures, see below and despite the 7 to 8 hour journey home to Dorset it was a great weekend away and they could not speak more highly of the venue. It’s three day event mode now for the next few weeks and if the sun will continue to shine then everyone will be happy. Shout out to the crew away and at home that keep this show on the road. It takes a village you know….
