Having blown the cobwebs away with the grown up horses at Tweseldown last weekend it was the turn of the youngsters for their first outing of 2025 at fairly local Moreton Equestrian Centre in Dorset. Baby horse days are rarely without drama and Saturday proved to be no exception from the rule!
Jonelle had just the one ride in the BE 100, a genuine first timer at BE100 level, LSF The Boss (Boss). Boss has some life experience being 8 years old and most of that has been accrued in his home town in Ireland so the rural location and rolling hills of Moreton would have been fairly familiar to him.
They were equal second after dressage with an impressive 24.8 and jumped an immaculate showjumping round on the surface before heading out cross country. It was a beautiful sunny day at Moreton with great ground conditions and having popped the first four fences nicely Jonelle headed to the first combination at Fence 5 A.
Boss didn’t quite understand the question and ran off twice. Jonelle said she had identified the fence as “up there on the difficulty stakes” when she walked it so was not entirely surprised but decided on the third attempt more out of resignation than anticipation but Boss decided he did want to be an eventer and to his credit jumped it and cruised around the rest of the track without any issues. It was a very positive first outing and Jonelle was able to go and join Abel at a birthday party whilst Tim had 4 rides so remained at Moreton.
Tim’s first ride of the day was Indy du Loir (Indy) who ran some 100’s last year whilst he grew into his daddy long legs frame. This year he has filled out in all the right places and his concentration level has gone from gnat to at least a worker bee. He did a nice test for a 28 and went down to the showjumping warm up in good form. He jumped probably his best round to date around 3/4 of the track before he stepped at a vertical and caught the pole between his front legs which inevitably resulted in both Tim and himself crashing into the dirt. Faceplanting in a 100 was not part of Tim’s plan for Indy’s first outing and it wasn’t ideal for Indy either but they both got up fine and if the worst thing that happened was the big E on the score board then it was not the end of the world.
Three novices for Tim with Gloire de Marchenval (Louis), Garcon (Tibo) and Valor (Flynn) having very different levels of experience. Flynn did a couple of 2* Shorts at the back end of 2024 whilst Tibo tackled his first 4*Short at Ligniere. Although to be fair Tibo’s challenge ended quite abruptly at fence 3 on the cross country at Lignieres so he does still have that box to tick! Louis won last weeknd at Tweseldown novice and heads for his first intermediate at Barbury this coming weekend.
Flynn and Tibo were both very fresh in the dressage which was understandable for a 35 and a 37 and jumped classy clear rounds on the all weather. Louis scored a 28 which meant he comfortably won the dressage with no other combination in the 20’s. He also jumped a lovely clear round and Tim was more than happy to head out onto the cross country on three very smart horses.
All three jumped steady and reliable clear rounds and Tim was happy to give Louis’s win away this week in order for a quiet run. It was a great outing and nice to be under an hour away from home at the end of the day and everyone feels blessed with you compete in the sun in March in the UK!