Tim and his four 4*Short horses are out in Lignieres for the 4*S and we are very grateful to to the team in Lignieres who could not be more helpful and were more than happy to give Tim 4 rides in one class. The crew had left the UK in drenching rain and had arrived to much of the same in mid France with the rain and wind being particularly challenging yesterday. Today was less wet but more windy so not ideal conditions for dressage by any means!
Unsurprisingly Tim was first in with debut at the level Garcon (Tibo) who was originally down for the 3 star class but who went so well and impressed Tim so much in the 3 star at Arville that Tim upgraded him to the 4*S here. Tibo was a star in the trot work and most of the canter work and he has great changes at home but adding them into a test situation today, on top of the test being the hardest he has ever done was just one step too far and two bad changes with double marks were very expensive to drop the score to 33.9. Tim described him as ” just losing himself in the moment but very exciting for the future” which is a pretty strong endorsement for Tibo!
Next up was Global Quest (George) who has very established changes and after two superb ones at the required markers in the 4 star test he did his half 10 metre circle back to the centre line to finish and threw in another fabulous change just because he thought it may impress the judges. It didn’t impress 2 of them although the 3rd missed it and still gave him a 7! Tim has only had a couple of intermediate runs on George so was delighted to get him in a big arena and he said he learnt allot about him and it was a really positive thing to take forward to Boekelo next month. 30.2 was his final score, just a smidgeon off the 70% mark and just one place behind Cosby Green and Highly Suspicious (Puff) who did a great test for a 29.
Falco was first after the lunch break and he was genuinely uber fresh and as Tim said, he hadn’t prepped Falco for this as anything other than a fun run prior to Maryland 5 star so Falco was allowed to be cheeky. And he did push the boundaries with plenty of loss of concentration on Tim ( not on the venue or the flags which were apparently fascinating!) and a proper “My God I am a Legend” moment in the second flying change when he decided to replace it with a simple change, although through trot, , then picked up canter again, did a great change but lost a few marks to put him on a 28.7 and 10th place. I suspect he was looking for the Versailles Palace having found himself back in France and as pretty as Lignieres is there are no palaces in this part of rural France. You cant really blame Falco for not dancing today when his last French backdrop was far more spectacular!
Jarillo (Milo) was the last to go and he was pretty challenging in the warm up with lots of flapping flags, tents and everything that wasn’t nailed down in the wind plus his usual fear of other horses heading his way. It was a relief to get into the ring where he turned into Milo the Pro and did a very smart 25.9 to sit just 2.4 off the lead in 5th spot.
Lignieres is very much a stepping stone event….Tibo is stepping up for his season finale, George is prepping for Boekelo and Milo and Falco both head to autumn 5 stars, Milo to Pau and Falco has earnt himself a ticket to Maryland in the USA for his first trip across the pond. Tim isn’t in it to win it this weekend but with 4 very respectable tests under his belt he is looking forward to show jumping tomorrow and its a shame that you need 4 different riders for a Nations Cup team as Tim could have simply fielded his own! And as a point of interest if he did he would be lying in silver medal position behind the French right now……..maybe it is something we should pursue with the FEI!
All the action is live on Clip My Horse https://www.clipmyhorse.tv/en_GB/
Due to the adverse weather they have swopped the showjumping to Saturday and the XC to Sunday which is a typically pro active move by the team at Lignieres and very much appreciated. Hopefully the ground will dry out a bit by Sunday!
