Sunny Saturday at Bicton today and plenty of visitors to the site for the Bank Holiday weekend. Bicton has an amazing International grass showjumping arena but that becomes part of the cross country ( well, the edges of it) so the 4*S SJ is held on the all weather area adjacent to the all weather collecting ring. It’s great in that it’s away from the 2 and 3* cross country going on but it’s a tight collecting ring and a fairly tight arena space.
Viscount Viktor jumped around lunchtime and apart from a single error when he ran a little deep to the oxer at fence 4 to the front rail he jumped a solid round. Tim did struggle slightly to find a rhythm as the crowd at close quarters distracted the horses and with it being such a huge class with just 4 faults Viktor dropped down the order to 40th spot (which is actually pretty unimportant as Viktor isn’t at Bicton to win but as a prep run for Luhmuhlen 5 star Long). It’s just another example of how Tim likes to prep his horses for the big ones, he selects warm up events that mirror the big one and just quietly trains away. Viktor jumped super after that early mistake and Tim was delighted with him.
Falco jumped around 2.30 and by that time the PA system had asked repeatedly for the onlookers to stay still when the horses were jumping. It’s a relatively small area around the SJ track and on a warm sunny day it was very busy with small children running around and crowds a few deep. To be fair it’s all part and parcel of upper level eventing and something horses learn to cope with along the way so no bad thing but Falco is exceptionally fresh and sharp at the moment and when he spooked violently at the crowd on his way to fence 1 it was a heart in the mouth moment for Tim for sure! Tim held his line, Falco re routed back to the line and jumped the fence fine and as if that was a wake up call he then ignored the crowd and listened to Tim to put in his usual foot perfect showing over the poles. He sits in 5th overnight with a cracking showing of his abilities.
XC is live tomorrow on https://www.clipmyhorse.tv/en_GB/ and also available on catch up later for those in NZ. Live results and start lists are on
https://www.eventingscores.co.uk
Not so much sun forecast for tomorrow but an entertaining days sport ahead with so many Olympic bound horses vying for tomorrows top 10.
