Well the weather stayed consistent in Holland as today dawned grey and cold with drizzly rain. Both Falco and Coup de Coeur Dudevin (Joker) jogged up this morning and then had to wait for the 2 and 3 Long classes to showjump before them.
Tim jumped out of order on Joker and just had the in of the treble down for 4 faults. Tim said it was “my rail not Joker’s” as he just ran him a little deep and that “he jumped super today, I was so happy with him”. Out of the 15 left to jump there were just 4 clears in the end and of course one of them was Falco! That put a bit of pressure on Astier Nicholas and Babylon de Gamma and he used up his luck with the last fence down but with a fence in hand he retained the top spot. To be fair to Astier he won it yesterday with just 7.6 time faults on the cross country, the next fastest being 15.2 and Tim 5th fastest on Falco with 18.8. Tim was never going to gallop flat tack round a 4L in March so to finish up 2nd and 7th with Falco and Joker is amazing, especially since Joker is coming back after a year out and Falco coming back from surgery.
Boxes all ticked for the Long format MER for Paris, just a couple of 4*Shorts left for these two boys and the end of a cold, wet but well worthwhile jaunt out to Kronenberg for sure. And one “relieved” Tim Price en route home tonight!