Tweseldown in March has thrown allot of weather at us over the years but today, like Donald Trump playing nice, it took us by surprise with a balmy 14 degrees, sunshine, blue skies and a smidge of a breeze. Well, at the top of the hill on the cross country it was slightly more than a smidge but still totally acceptable. Children frolicked in T shirts which in a normal year would have necessitated a call to the NSPCC and the show jumping arena was surrounded by people picnicking on the grass which is a sight previously unseen at this venue in March. Although some of them were perilously close to an actual fence by the ropes and had clearly no idea of what happens when half a tonne of (off its head) horse crashes into an oxer but, as in all things, experience is a learning process.
A 5am departure time for Tim and Jonelle was actually remarkably civil with 7 horses making the trip from Dorset. It’s a comparatively easy day to warm up for the 15 heading for Barbury on the Friday, followed by another 10 on the Saturday so the crew were making the most of it with Rosie and Beth doing sterling work.
Tim had 4 of his superstar horses out and they are all heading for spring 5 stars alongside Vitali ( who is such rockstar he doesn’t get out of bed before the clocks go forward) and he certainly sashayed away in the dressage this morning. Viscount Viktor (Viktor) won the dressage for TP’s team with a 25.5, Happy Boy (Happy) did a 26.4, Falco was delightfully fresh for a 27.3 and Jarillo,(Milo) slightly hampered by the very busy warm up, scored a 30.7. I have a feeling that Milo, being such a modern sort of event horse, is a bit woke and could be heard banging on about his ‘mental health’ when it comes to his issues with being horse shy but there you go, that’s the Covid generation for you.
Hiarado (Jools) is about as far away from woke as you could get….more Emily Pankhurst than Greta Thunberg….but she and Jonelle equalled their best ever PB with a 24.1 on the flat which was a an exceptionally nice way to kick off 2015. New ride for Jonelle, Capitaine de Hus Z (Alvin), hasn’t always played nicely as he is a proper cheeky chappie but today he scored a 30 which was a credible start to a new partnership and plenty to build upon.
The showjumping arena had the best ground Tweseldown has ever seen but this new for 2025 idea of ” its a rule that you stick to your allotted times” is nothing but a nightmare for multiple riders ( and makes for a very long day for some one horse riders as well). Team Price is adept at banging 10 horses with 2 riders through the showjumping in around 45-50 minutes thanks to the amazing work the staff do but today saw Tim showjumping 2, then cross country 2, then back to the SJ with 2 which is simply a pain and involves allot of changing clothes and faffing. Jonelle only had 2 but she did SJ and XC on one then the other which is such a waste of time. Multiples are the slickest of the lot and unsurprisingly the SJ warm up was very sparse at times which played into Milo’s hands as he loves it like that but it’s not conducive to a productive day.
Milo, Jools and Viktor all jumped exemplary rounds. Happy tipped an unlucky rail behind right at the end of the track, Alvin won the warm up as Jonelle said and jumped superbly apart from one rail when he got tight behind and shock, horror, Falco had a rail which is actually good as we should be fine for the next three years now.
The entire crew were faultless cross country with both Tim and Jonelle schooling round with between 8 and 20 time faults across the board and whilst Happy had prepped himself all day for his traditional gawp at the coffin at Tweseldown he had finished before he realised it wasn’t in this spring.
Shout out to Cosby Green though who scored a 24.1 on the flat with Jo Pidduck’s Cooley Seeing Magic (Guthrie), a double clear with just 2 time to finish up 5th in a super hot OI class. She mentioned that with Copper Beach (Sean) retiring that Guthrie was going to step up and boy, he has stamped his mark of intent on that!
Shout out to Rachel Faulkner and her team and Jump1 for running such a brilliant early season event. And the food trucks in the truck park were much appreciated!