Scroll back to Boekelo 2024 and they literally bulldozed the worst of the mud to the side of the walkways for the huge crowds that attend. Fast forward to 2025 and whilst it was cool, there was no mud, it hasn’t rained all week, the footing was good and the attendance looked at record levels which is quite saying something.
Tim’s two rides, Garcon (Tibo) and Brookfield Future News (Matthew), had to wait until all the Nations Cup horses had run cross country so it was an unusually late start for Tim to head out at a 4L on his first ride. It did give him the advantage of having watched allot of other people go and as we all know, that sort of information is invaluable. The track at Boekelo isn’t huge in dimensions but it twists and turns, has three water complexes and generally requires quick thinking from the horses and nifty footwork.
Matthew proved he has an abundance of both. He is smart. slick, economical and is happy to let Tim dictate the approach and pace. Tim said he “had a lot of fun” as they zipped around and he was delighted that “Matthew was up for everything” and he came home with his ears pricked as he popped the last and crossed the finish line. They were 2 seconds inside the time and moved up from 55th to 24th which is pretty impressive.
Tim wasn’t quite sure how Tibo would tackle the track as he was a little worried it was going to be a bit of a fight if Tibo grabbed the bit and started running through he distances. But he was pleasantly surprised to find Tibo had put his big boy pants on and he gave Tim a super ride and as Tim said, for the first time he was able to put his leg on and let him gallop. “And he has a lovely gallop” he commented. Their only blip was late on in the course at the skinny triple bar on top of the mound.. Tibo soared over the oxer, galloped up the rise and never picked up on the skinny, found himself at the base of it and just nipped out to the left. The MIM clips were quickly reassembled and Tim ignored the alternative and headed for it again and all credit to Tibo he jumped it neatly and ran down the hill to the corner at the bottom and jumped that beautifully too.
As Tim said, it was a combination of factors. Tibo’s first 4Long, it came at a time on the course when stamina began to come into play, it was the furthest that Tibo has ever galloped and he just lacks the experience to totally focus on the fences in front of him at this early stage in his career. He described himself as “absolutely delighted” with him and noted that today was a good day to make a learning mistake when he was sitting on a 35 anyway.
Both horses pulled up well which is always a bonus. Huge congratulations to Jesse Campbell who stormed around on Speedwell (Arthur) to finish on his dressage score of 27.1. Plenty of shenanigans throughout the day with the leaderboard showing Laura Collett, who finished on 26.9 on Count Onyx (Archie), as first having a 15 flag penalty, then being eliminated, then reinstating the 15 flag penalty then some 7 hours after she had finished she was suddenly atop the leaderboard again with all penalties removed! So Jesse now sits in 2nd with all to play for back in the arena tomorrow afternoon.
