Blue skies at Fairhill and perfect weather for dancing in the sandbox (as the Americans love to call the arena). It’s an impressive main arena which is overlooked by the VIP hospitality but not dwarfed by huge stands and the horses seem, in general, to settle pretty well in there.
Monica Spencer and her own Artist (Max) set the standard for the afternoon session with a foot perfect 23.4 to take the lead and it was very well deserved. Max might be a thoroughbred but he moves like a dressage horse and it was quite the test.
Chilli’s Midnight Star (Ollie) looked like Maryland main arena was just the sort of stadium he has been waiting for for the past 11 years of his life. He didn’t just own it, he was rather unashamedly noveau riche about his entrance, kind of ‘boy from Dorset done good, aye!’ as he sauntered down the centre line into a superb halt. He trotted off and looked at the judge at C, who happened to be Sandy Phillips, directly in the eye and turned the corner to execute the flashiest medium I have ever seen him do. He backed that up with an even better extended trot and the tone was set for a cracking test.
He made a few small errors in the second half like coming slightly above the bit in the walk to canter transition and 2 out of the 4 changes were a bit quick and not quite clean. But the overall impression was “wow” and not that many horses cope so well with their 5 star debut as Ollie did. Plenty more to come for sure.
H and B judges had him on 71.3% and 70.9% but it would appear that Sandy might not appreciate being challenged by a working class lad from the south as she sat on 66.7%. A score of 30.3 was good enough at the end of the afternoon to sit in equal 4th with Boyd Martin and just ahead of Tayla Mason on 30.4 on Centennial (Chase).
“Happy with that!” announced Jonelle. Owner/breeder Nikki Axon was a bit more excited than I have ever heard her and shout out to joint owner Mel Halstead who I don’t doubt is glued to ClipMyHorse in the UK.
Live scoring on https://www.rechenstelle.de/en/agenda/2025/elkton-md/
Live streaming on ClipMyHorse TV.
Jonelle starts out at 3.20pm on Saturday which is 8.20pm UK and 8.20am in NZ.
