A very long Saturday at Blenheim when the 4S showjumping started at 7.45 am and Tim was second in on Dromgurrihy Gold ( Dara). Dara jumped the first half of the round superbly, was a little unlucky to tap out the back bar of an oxer and then decided he was in cross country mode on the route to the last vertical and then discovered steeplechasing verticals doesn’t really pan out. To be fair to Dara there were a couple of cross country fences in the arena so it could be construed as mixed messages and how would he know that crossed flags on them meant that they were for later in the day? It certainly wasn’t a bad effort for an 8 year old around a track that caused plenty of problems.
Jonelle and Full Monty de Lacense (FM) went around a (more civilised) hour later and FM pulled out all the stops to deliver a super clear round, and, crucially, within the time allowed which was not so easy to do. He pulled up from 9th to 4th by dint of this and Jonelle was delighted with him as she should be.
Jonelle then had to hang around waiting to go cross country on Senor Crocodillo (Diego) at 4.26 whereas at least Tim set off on his first ride, Happy Boy, at around 1pm. Some 24 horses had gone so Tim had some time to watch when he set off and bearing in mind Happy hasn’t completed an event since 2022 there was plenty of pressure riding on his shoulders. Happy lay in 4th spot when he left the start box, there was a big old left handed corner at fence 5 and Happy said no three times to the left handed corner late on at Cornbury last week.
Happy strode through the combination at fence 5 and Tim could at least take a breath and concentrate on his plan for the rest of the track. When Happy is on form he is incredible and Tim jumped from combination to combination with assured ease and he had been contemplating the long route at the second water all day as it was not really right up Happy’s street. He was up on the clock so he took the risk and went long and that definitely paid off by the end of the day! It was a water that had varying degrees of success all day, apart from the 15% of riders and horses that made it look sublime, and there were plenty of rough passages through it. Tim and Happy scarpered around the long route and set sail for home in a superb galloping rhythm and Happy’s first trip to Blenheim ended on a great note as he added just 1.6 time to his dressage score.
If you followed the scoring on EventingScores that dropped him to 10th on the leaderboard as those who hadn’t yet gone cross country stayed ahead of him. As the afternoon progressed Tim’s ride up the leaderboard was gradual but rise he did, all the way to the top as he holds the No.1 position overnight. Just Padraig McCarthy made time all day and Tim was third fastest but the only one to take a long route! That’s class.
Jonelle and Diego had waited through mist and rain and then set off with a setting sun making long shadows across the track as they departed the start box. Diego is a solid cross country horse and he was simply awesome at Hartpury in the British Open but tricky in the contact at Cornbury. It seems an odd thing but when he gets nervous or over excited he gets super hypersensitive which results in the second Jonelle holds the rein in a contact he becomes totally reactive and shakes his head and flicks his head back in her face. Today he showed it to the extreme at the start of the track and Jonelle used all of her experience to drop the contact when she had to and trust that the distance to the fence would be ok and he actually got better the further he went. Diego doesn’t look left nor right but only for the flags and they negotiated the huge log into the water with aplomb and the tricky coffin and were heading home for a fast clear when Jonelle’s current ” I cant catch a break” run of luck stepped back in. They were crossing the lake for the return journey with an innocuous fence to jump just on the rise out of the waters edge when, in Jonelle’s words, ” I just came across the lake, thought don’t take the first one and then he just threw his head back at me, then I couldn’t see anything and suddenly we were there with no distance whatsoever” and they had added a 20 to their card. No one is more competitive than Jonelle and it is simply heartbreaking to see her struggling through this run of bad luck but you simply couldn’t make it up that she was the only combination to fault here all day, just like Burghley at the Leaf Pit.
Tim was out on course on the precocious Chio 20 as this happened and he had his hands full with a horse than ran around this venue in the 8/9 last year and was like “Oh yeah, I got this, I know this track and lets go!”. Tim eloquently guided him around a much tougher version than the Short and allowed Chio to gallop along when he could and swung off his head when he was in trouble heading to the coffin! Chio powered the straight way through the second water that Happy went long at as they really couldn’t be more different types and it is one of Tim’s unique strengths that he can be so brilliant on such different types of event horses. Chio was pretty awesome to be fair and put behind him all the boyish antics of spooking at fence decorations, gawping at the crowds and all the other unruly traits he has to storm home clear with just 4.4 time and an elevation into 8th place which is pretty impressive for your first 4L at just 10 years old.
So a day of two halves again…..Tim sits with 2 in the top 10 in the Long and Dara with his cross country prowess to hopefully climb up the leaderboard tomorrow in the Short. Jonelle is gutted with her result with Diego but happy with the horse in that he was straight as a die at every combination, a chance on the very green FM tomorrow but very aware that having never done an advanced tomorrow is another big ask, especially when Lady Luck departed her just before Paris.
It’s never plain sailing when you are at the top but if him upstairs could just throw Jonelle a bit of stardust we would really appreciate it.