It was a very autumnal misty morning when Tim and Dromgurrihy Gold (Dara) cantered down the centre line at 9.06 this morning. Dara doesn’t find the dressage particularly easy but his middle name is try and he really did do his absolute best to score all the marks he could! The mistakes that he does make are genuine green ones and its hard when you haven’t quite got a smooth flying change yet in the arena when they are scored x 2 on both reins and Dara likes to make a big deal of them at this stage in his education. He is becoming more elegant though and at just 8 years old and this being his third start this year at 4*S he is building some valuable experience for his future. A personal best score of 36.3 is some 4 marks better than in Arville last month and if he keeps going like that he will be doing just fine!
Jonelle and Full Monty de Lacense (FM) were in all sorts of trouble yesterday afternoon when they had a schooling session in the warm up arena. Having scored a 22 at Cornbury FM decided that the training arenas at Blenheim were the scariest thing ever and while Jonelle was cantering along the long side on the left lead he turned right and jumped out! And he repeated that feat too….. It’s a serious and unusual thing to do and if you exit a closed arena it is instant elimination in an FEI competition. Jonelle hopped off and sat on the H marker to contemplate her problem and how she was going to fix it in the next few hours whilst FM stood beside her and then he decided to jump back into the arena right beside her! Warming up for her test today Jonelle was repeatedly told by the stewards that she could use the arena but she stuck firmly outside it and didn’t dare risk it!
Cantering into the main arena Jonelle was holding her breath as she began the test but FM seemed pretty relaxed and on side so she gradually was able to ask for a tiny bit more in the movements as she got further through the test and she came out with a 31.2 which was actually good enough for third at the end of Thursday’s competition, just 1.8 off Clarke Johnstone and Rocketman who lead on 29.4. All horses are different but FM is a particularly weird one when he decides something is stressy for sure!
Tim and Happy Boy have a slight different stress to deal with but it is generally not dressage related. The stars aligned for Happy with warm sunshine, a breeze, a nice crowd, an agreeable time of 3.30 which doesn’t mean an early start and also doesnt cut into Happy Hour and he looked pretty damn good in the warm up.
He looked even better in the main ring and gave a sterling performance to take the lead on day 1 with a 25.4 which was well deserved. There was one halt before the rein back where he left a back foot, went to pick it up to stand square and thought “nah, cant be bothered” but since none of the judges picked up on it Happy’s token disobedience went unnoticed. That’s Karma for Cornbury! Although there is a big left handed corner at fence 5 so we will see whether cross country schooling at Rosamund Farm worked a treat on Saturday: To be fair to Happy he has always gone well at the big ones up until Saumur this Spring when he tied up. We have the faith!
Blenheim really is beautiful in the sunshine and we are lucky to have such a spectacular backdrop. We have Chio 20 and Senor Crocodillo (Diego) tomorrow in the 4*L and another sunny day on the cards so so far Blenheim is looking pretty cool for Team Price!
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