Chard is one of the most local of Tim and Jonelle’s events, a mere 20 mins away which is by far and away a hands down YES from team Price. Jonelle elected to take her yet-to-be-named 4 year old to the BE90 on the Saturday in an unusual move as I don’t recall Jonelle ever eventing a 4 year old before in her entire career! Joe and Alex Giannamore own so it has been in the barn on and off since he was 3 and Jonelle clearly thinks allot of “Tommas” as we hastily pencilled in on his passport to allow him to be registered for GOBE. Tommas is his stable name, it is supposed to be the Hungarian version of Thomas but something got lost in translation as that should have been Tamas. And, to be fair, he is French bred and has nothing to do with Hungary but that’s another story!
GOBE is British Eventings solution to the huge market that series like The Cotswold Cup has gained in the unaffiliated market. The Cotswold Cup venues such as Barbary Castle have huge entries as they appeal to amateurs and professionals alike….the pros love to run their youngsters around great venues with classes up to 100 with no ‘records’ on their horses names so they can learn on the job, it has great prize money for the genuine amateurs and a championship to boot. The BE version is, of course, more complicated. You have to affiliate register said horse which is a bit of a pain and then you get charged an extra fee as you don’t have a season ticket so its not much cheaper than registering plus you have no ballot options so are first on the kick out list. And there is no record so you won’t know that Jonelle was really happy with Tommas with a sweet baby dressage, a nice round showjumping and a couple of technicals cross country. You know Jonelle likes a horse allot when she defended her cross country with “who knew 90’s could be so challenging” describing fence judges cars being in the wrong place and a skinny downhill to a corner which involved a circle in between as, in a surprising move (not), her 4 year old didn’t have any stud holes in and she said she was “skating going uphill let alone down”. Many moons ago Jonelle rode a horse called Full Ahead, who was known at home as Slippy in fact, at Pontispool and Tim was riding some other similarly challenging yak whose name escapes me and they both decried studs in 100 horses as they said they needed to learn their own balance. Approximately 2 mins into the track Tim was stuck abreast a log about 3′ high as said yak had aborted half way across and Jonelle’s “Slippy” had indeed gone splat on the flat. Tommas and Jonelle survived their baptism of fire and he will head home to Joe’s with Vitali after Burghley for a well deserved holiday.
Tim rocked up to Chard on Sunday with one simple mission: to get his three very green 100 horses to a fine end of season performance. Of course the pressure on a ‘final’ season appearance means it cannot be an unmitigated disaster as winter is far too long to dwell and yet another event may need to be sourced. Chard 100 may not seem like the prefect pre Burghley event but I think that Tim would agree that it is equally as challenging and probably much more hard work!
Monbeg Crystal Clear (Kris) is all legs and good intentions and after a 31 dressage, a clear round over the poles and another clear cross country has most definitely ticked his end of season box. He will come on leaps and bounds from some time spent considering his summer eventing and will go out a happy boy.
Just Spotless (Spot) was a late addition to the team this summer but he has majestically dealt with being thrown in the deep end with a solid attitude and yet again pulled out all the stops for a 28.5 and a double clear just 1 second over the time cross country for 3rd place. He wears the same somewhat inscrutable expression on his face but he is ticking all the boxes and is heading on his hols.
Indy du Loir wowed the dressage judge in his section with a 21.8 to lead, jumped another immaculate clear in the showjumping and followed that up with a clear cross country with 8 time faults for 4th. Never let it be said that Tim is a pot hunter!
That’s it for the proper babies, they are done and dusted and heading out to green fields and a well deserved autumn holiday. This stage of their careers, the first year, is so important and the building blocks of their entire future depend on it.
We just have one more massive ‘one day’ at Cornbury with 20 odd horses from the yard attending ( and another 4 balloted which is SO annoying) and apart from a few other one days, September and October is all things three day. Burghley with 5 horses from Chedington next week, Blenheim, Lignieres, Boekelo, Maryland, Le Lion d’Angers and Pau are all on the horizon.
It is certainly not over yet but for a bunch of kids it is holiday time and boy, do they all deserve it! And talking of kids, as Abel and Otis feature on the headliner for this post, it’s actually back to school for them on Thursday this week after a fabulous summer holiday which they both thoroughly enjoyed. And no, they are not reviewing footage of their parents but of themselves in Le Pin au Haras team camp!