Six horses for Tim and Jonelle down in the south of France with three apiece for the final 5 star of the season and a big week ahead. Thursday definitely didn’t go to plan with strong winds in the night and heavy rain meaning the OC switched the planned 8am jog and half a day of dressage to a 5pm jog and no Thursday dressage.
The weather hadn’t improved much by 5pm and all the photos show drenched riders and horses on the strip just trying to get it done and back to the stables as fast as possible! A stellar team looking after Team Price headed up by Rosie Thomas and backed up by Louella le Moigne, Twm Cernyw and Sean Duffy who were also looking pretty soggy although at least they could retain their wellies and raincoats unlike Tim and Jonelle.
No problems for Tim and Global Quest (George), Happy Boy and Jarillo (Milo) who all sailed through. Jonelle and Senor Crocodillo (Diego) and Grappa Nera (Grape) were fine but the ground jury decided that Hiarado (Jools) should go the hold box. It just meant a bit more time in the rain but Jools left them in no doubt when she jogged again that she was good to go for the week.
The ground jury signed off on an 8am start for Friday’s dressage which presented an immediate problem for Jonelle as No.1 with Grape as it doesn’t get light in France at this time of year until 7.30. Grape isn’t exactly a 30 min warm up type of pony and so after some discussion the start time was moved to 9.30 am for which Jonelle is truly grateful!
It’s going to be a challenge riding three 5 star tests in one day when generally it’s just the one per day at this level. Hopefully the weather will improve a bit for dressage but the weekend promises more rain. The official line on the Met weather for Pau was:
“Moderate damages may occur, especially in vulnerable or in exposed areas and to people who carry out weather-related activities” which pretty much summed up the fate of the NZ tent which was one of the early casualties of the week. Ginny Loisel had erected it upon arrival on Wednesday and Beaney Davidson, acting as Team Price Chief Cook for the week, spent most of the night checking on it before it suffered a potentially fatal tip over at 7.30 am. Lets just hope this is the only upending of the week!
