Our stunning spring had to end sometime and boy did it depart in a rush! Chard would be Tim and Jonelle’s most local event and they both had a couple of young horses to ride as well as all the students horses there and having enjoyed a sublime start to 2025 it was not ideal to have to deal with wind and rain on the babies!
The Kentucky horses departed from Stanstead on Wednesday with Beth and Rosie flying out of Heathrow on the same day to meet up with them in the quarantine station in Louisville. Jarillo (Milo), Falco, Hiarado (Jools) and Happy Boy (making the plane by the skin of his teeth!) travelled well and Rosie reports that the quarantine staff are being really helpful and they are able to hand walk the horses which is great news.
Jonelle had LSF The Boss in the 100 and neither horse nor rider enjoy dressage in the pelting rain and strong wind. Boss then went down to the showjumping and had a little bit of a nap as he came round the corner to the double, hanging back to the collecting ring, Jonelle gave him a kick and he manned up and popped through the double clear but the judges gave him 4 penalties for a stop which was more than a little mean! He then went cross country and tried hard to work out how to gallop downhill as it is just his third event and Chard is really, really hilly! And it was really really slippy when you have only ever been on nice footing. He managed to get his head around it which was impressive and Jonelle retired to the truck to get changed for her novice start on I like it de Rohan (Kiki).
Kiki is a proper French Princess and she thought trying to do dressage with rain in her ears was less than ideal. Or more accurately, she hated it! She wasn’t much of a fan of jumping in it either despite the nice warm ear covers Jonelle added to her tack but did her best and she “battled her way” around what turned out to be a pretty tough novice cross country much to Jonelle’s delight. She said it’s the first time Chard has run a novice and it was quite challenging with the hills, the rain and the odd quite open distance downhill to something tough after a couple of small fences. Jonelle described the best part of the day as “finishing!” and the shower she leapt straight into when she got home.
With three of his horses now on the other side of the pond only Tim would ride a first timer and a horse on a CPR at Chard! He was under no pressure to do so, he and Jonelle own one of them and he and Cam Price own the other but Tim doesn’t do ‘risk adverse’ although he may have regretted his decision when he arrived at the event and headed out to the dressage in what he described as “a blizzard” which was perhaps a little extreme as it wasn’t actually snowing.
Mercurial (Meryl) is a 5 year old homebred who has done a few events with working student Bridget Garlick and has definitely taken advantage of Bridget’s good nature having twice walked home in her first couple of events at fence 12. Tim had a bit of a play with Meryl this week, Meryl learnt that Tim isn’t quite as easy to pull the wool over and he decided he would make sure the lesson was learnt by riding her at Chard. Bridget had two other rides to get wet on so I am sure she was delighted to hand over the reins. Meryl didn’t like the weather anymore than Tim for a 39, she jumped a very nice clear round showjumping and then went cross country and saw the finish flags at the end of a clear cross country for the first time in 2025 so all boxes were ticked.
Second ride was Supplejack (Jack) who is a TB by the Derby winner Australia so I think it safe to say that Tim and Cam paid a whole lot less for him than Coolmoor had planned for his offspring when he had finished racing. He is just 5 years old and probably more used to early starts than Tim and he displayed a very grown up attitude for his first go inside the white boards for a 35. He had a green first fence down and one other when his eyes were out on stalks looking at everything but that fence but jumped some good ones before going cross country in a way that Tim described as ” a pure natural”.
Tim said that conditions were so bad he had to ask the cross country start guys to remind him what colour the BE90 fences were numbered. I am not sure Tim has ever ridden in a 90 at any stage in his career but judging by his less than enthusiastic attitude to the day he won’t be doing many more!
Ride three was on the novice Indy du Loir but Tim bailed on that one and got in the car to return to Chedington. Indy would have been by far his safest ride of the day and he has another 5 rides at Kelsall Hill tomorrow but Tim is, as always, honest.
“I really didn’t want to go to Kentucky with a cold so I’m going home and my owners were very understanding”. Considering 3 out of the 4 owners of Indy have horses sitting in the USA I am not surprised!
Photo credit: Rosie Thomas. Falco, Happy, Milo and Jools in quarantine in the USA.
