Cool and breezy for cross country day which may not be ideal for spectators but very good for the horses. The 4*Short ran in the morning, delayed by half an hour to let the rain pull through and the 4*S caused plenty enough problems across the board. That track ran on very little shared ground though so when Tim pulled out of the start box as pathfinder on Jarillo (Milo) he had virgin ground to gallop on.
Milo is an extraordinary horse on so many counts. He is only 11 and didn’t meet up with Tim until the latter end of his 6 year old year but every time a question has been thrown at him he has responded. He slogged through the mud at Pau last October, hit a bit of a wall late on and fought through it and finished the track and with a horse that is not a blood horse, they really have to want to do that for themselves. Tim and Milo showed the field that the combinations were all very jumpable and he was probably one of the best all day through the tough coffin early on that required nifty footwork to negotiate the steep slope down to the hefty ditch before the fence on the rising ground on the out. He galloped and jumped and Tim described him at the end as “Falco-esque” in the way that sometimes he gives the fences such a bascule that you know you are going to have to sit quiet on landing for the B or C element as its not the traditional slightly flatter cross country slick across the fence. It’s a very nice problem to have! Milo was pure class and set Tim up for the rest of the day.
Jonelle was out a few horses later and although we didn’t see it she said she had a very awkward jump at fence three as Hiarado (Jools) looked at everything but the fence. She said they were in trouble coming down to the first water at fence 4 as Jools was stage struck, got in, she didn’t think she was going to make the fish, but did, then simply couldn’t get her eye on the skinny up on the bank. Jools took out the flag and Jonelle said she then had to make a fast decision as to what to do. She was pretty sure it was a ‘bad’ flag and didn’t want to carry on and get pulled up a couple of fences later for an elimination. She turned back and jumped the option and then considered re routing to Luhmuhlen but decided that would mess up her Aachen plans. So she decided education was the order of the day and described herself as “philosophically happy” at the finish as Jools simply got better and better the further she went. As Jonelle reflected, it was just like Paris all over again but she thought that Paris had solved that problem of not being on it from the start but hopefully running around the rest of Kentucky as well as she did will have given her more valuable experience.
Tim headed out of the box at the half way stage on Happy Boy and Tim looked as determined as he has ever done. Happy looked relaxed and in ‘sport’ mode and they picked up an 11 for a pin at fence three before heading on down to the coffin. Happy jumped in, shut down when he saw the gaping ditch at the bottom of the slope, did some fancy footwork on the piaffe side of footwork before deciding to do the right thing and jump it and make the jump out. It wasn’t pretty but it got the job done and that coffin was an immense test for Happy. They picked up a 20 at the double of corners but Tim pressed on and fair play to Happy, he jumped from fence to fence and kept on trucking. Happy has spent his life finding it all so easy and it was timely that on his biggest track to date he did dig deep and prove he will be a good 5 star horse. Somewhat bizarrely he was pulled up late on by the stewards, reportedly as someone had decided he had blood on him ( which surely must have needed to be catastrophic on a black horse to be noticed!) but then allowed to carry on which was yet another test of his courage as its hard to switch back on again. Tim was not so impressed with the timing of the stewards pulling him up and said so at the end of the course interview. Happy came home through the flags with 51 jumping penalties on his cards but he came home and that is in itself quite the feat on a day like today was.
Tim and Falco looked like the perfect partnership that they are. Even Falco baulked at the sight of the ditch at the coffin but he clocked it fast and skipped on out. They jumped around looking spectacular, Falco’s big stride eating up the ground and at 9 minutes they were 9 seconds up on the clock when a slightly awkward jump at the first of the wide brush arrowheads out of the Cosequin Cove water gave Falco his first XC penalty since Aachen in 2023 when he stopped at the base of the second brush arrowhead. It was one of those bizarre moments to happen late on in the course and never looked like it was going to happen until it did. Tim said that ” he landed a little steep and just found himself on a half stride, put in a little stop and jumped it perfectly at the second time of asking”. He surmised Falco as being ‘a careful and deliberate jumper, not an old fashioned eventer that will throw himself over no matter what the outcome” which is very true. He came home looking great, full of running and I am not sure what, if anything, Tim could have done differently.
Not a perfect day on paper for Team Price but the complexities of getting 4 horses to a 5 star, coupled with the ‘village’ it takes to get the team across the pond and ready to run and it is a tribute to all of them that all four horses completed the cross country today in what was a true 5 star test. Michi sits out in front and seemingly cant be caught but there is still a jog and the famous stadium test to go yet.