Tim returned to Farley on Sunday for the last of his rides, this time with The Highlander (Ivar) for his second novice and Faerie Usain (Maude) for her second 100. Green horses, rapidly drying ground and it was hot again!
Ivar didn’t blow the dressage judges away like he normally does but the section judge used the full range of marks available to her to score from 23 to 43 which is quite something in such a simple test! The showjumping arena was tough on a second time novice and Ivar bounced a couple of rails but he was a little superstar cross-country for a clear round and more mileage under his belt.
Maude was pretty short of experience for her second start ever having not made it past fence 5 at West Wilts. She did a green but nice test for a 35, left all the show jumps in their place and scorched around the XC for just 1 second over time and left Tim with a big smile on his face for his final ride of the weekend. Both the dapple greys have big futures!
Meanwhile Jonelle had ventured south across the borders of Dorset and Devon to Cornwall. Unsurprisingly it is Team Price’s first visit to the land of the best cream in the country and as she drove in she was welcomed like Nadal at Wimbledon. A buggy drove alongside, told Jonelle she could park wherever she wanted and then offered to drive her round the track.
I mean this just never happens. We are well used to warrior clad-in-high-viz parking boys who send you to the farthest point from the arenas with your three trucks and 12 horses.
So Princess of Cornwall was then driven around the track by a fabulously friendly man who so entertained Jonelle with the history of the event site, the local folklore, all sorts of skeletons (Cornwall has a huge smuggling history, just search Jamaica Inn!) and some seriously dodgy buggy driving that meant the creek crossings were quite hairy. Jonelle is a famously nervous passenger and at the end of the drive she was resplendant with the history of Launceton but had zero idea of actually where the track went. Fear does that to you.
E G Tiger Chilli improved on West Wilts with a 25 dressage and some 8 time for 2nd spot and some handy BE points. Jonelle was well chuffed with her improvement and her best result to date in the novice and then she moved onto the babies.
And babies they were. Faerie Good Golly was on her second start, J’Orange (Daisy) and Illico de L’Esques (Nico) were on their debut starts. Having massively enjoyed her tour of the track but having no idea where to go Jonelle decided that Golly, since she is owned by Tim and Jonelle, would be the sacrificial lamb and would go first so at least if Jonelle went wrong she wouldn’t have to explain it to anyone. So Golly meandered around the multiple creek crossings and ventured a little off the beaten path for some 8 time but another double clear to add to her tally. Its 100% jumping so far for Molly’s daughter and we could not be more proud!
Daisy stopped at both the creek crossings which was actually quite understandable as they had brightly painted boats on the approach. Jonelle surmised that there is no painted boat in any XC schooling in Ireland and there certainly isn’t any paint on the XC at Chedington so Daisy was quite within her rights to grind to a halt and stare suspiciously at said boats. And Nico is a bit of a lad so he rather weirdly suddenly adopted a “lets go this way” on the approach to an oxer and disappeared into the middle distance until re routed by Jonelle back to the track. But the actual fences were no problem so he too has a bright future.
And the icing on the cake was that our favourite American Cosby Green won on Cooley Seeing Magic (Guthrie) so with a win and a second from the big flash Price truck no matter how much the organisers welcomed Team Price the locals are probably still sticking pins into their effigies.
Such is life! Jonelle is a big fan and Team Price will definitely be back to Cornwall!