Sunny and hot at Howick today….they call it Chepstow at Howick as it’s the team for the Chepstow event ( that ran at Chepstow racecourse ) that run the event at Howick which is 10 mins outside of Chepstow.
It’s a beautiful spot just over the Welsh border, a really fun old fashioned event that does everything possible to be helpful to the riders with a rolling cross country track that is built by Jump1 and is a proper cross country test with plenty of questions that encourages forward riding.
Tim had his super posh thoroughbred Supplejack (Jack )in his third 100 start and he’s already hitting the 70% mark on the flat with a 30 dressage. The showjumping is a training in progress as he is a careful horse at home but stringing a course together is a learning curve when he has been used to 10 fences over half a mile as opposed to 14 in 1 minute 20! He was fabulous cross country over what would have been his most testing track to date, simply cruising around and answering all the questions with a brave and bold outlook and, of course, an easy gallop.
Indy du Loir (Indy) and Jonelle’s LSF The Boss were Tim’s novice rides as Jonelle had pleaded the fifth and given in to Otis and Abel’s request that at least one parent attend school sports day. There was no mothers race, much to our gym queens disappointment as I think she envisaged herself, Princess Diana style, stepping out of her Louboutins ( or In Jonelle’s case, her ME+EM runners) and flooring the opposition. But apparently Abel and Otis are in the same ‘house’ at school and they won sports day so a sweet video emerged of Abel and Otis celebrating.
Indy did a nice test for a 32 and warmed up smartly for the showjumping. He jumped a lovely round apart from the two times he disagreed with Tim’s choice of distance and stuck his head in the air and used his own mind to decide the pace and both times he was wrong. Someone needs to let onto him that he does have a very, very good jockey on board and maybe he should listen to the maestro but no doubt the penny will soon drop of its own accord. He was lovely cross country and ate up the track with ease as he is a bold and brave jumper…..his brain will catch up with his abilities!
Boss did a super test for a 30.5 and jumped an immaculate showjumping round. Tim and Boss then set out cross country with Boss’s usual look of determined concentration and it went swimmingly until fence 10 B. 10 A was a skinny with 10 B being a skinny with a drop on landing. Boss was happy over 10 A but suspicious of the landing on B so ran out left three times. Tim did say he actually dropped his shoulder and ran left absolutely last minute three times so he was a bit naughty but as Tim was also quick to add, “he’s careful and he knows his footwork and that’s the price you pay for a careful horse learning on the job”. Boss is suspicious of funny coloured gravel and landings he cant see and that is par for the course for a horse in his first season of eventing that is super fence allergic.
Suffice to say his regular jockey was not impressed but hey ho, par for the track.
In other news Cosby Green did a lovely double clear on Doris Day for 10th in the novice, Twm Cernyw is making solid progress on Demira EM (Alys) with a good result having face planted here last year and Bridget Garlick piloted both Poppins and Riverside Casanova (Errol) around their 100’s without incident. Happy days indeed.
And then Tim drove straight into a massive traffic jam on the M5 on his way home with half of the UK presumably heading south for a heatwave weekend and no doubt some twat lost his caravan en route. Welcome to UK summer!