In total contrast to Oasby, Tweseldown dawned with a light frost and blue skies…..happy days. It was still pretty cold when Jonelle trotted down the centre line at 8am on the first of her two 100 Open rides which was J’Orange (Daisy) who had most of last season on the sidelines and could have been forgiven for pulling some antics in the arena. Daisy clearly decided it was good to be back and was equal first after the dressage which was nice….for sure it was only a 100 test but Daisy has all sorts of tricks up her sleeve when she decides to play the chestnut mare card!
LSF The Boss also had an early end to his season mid summer last year and he came out very happy to be back in the game. A 32 test was pretty good in a section that only had a few in the high 20’s and they both show jumped an immaculate clear before having a fun time cross country, both bowling along inside the time for an 8th spot for Boss and a win for Daisy which is a very nice way to start the season for sure.
Boss then slightly marked his card by being so happy to be back he actually didn’t want to leave the party so he point blank refused to. He’s not the biggest fan of the 2 horse anyway…having come from a boggy spot in the depths of Ireland where he spent his formative years he has embraced his new life with gusto and he was pretty sure he could spot the big truck in the truck park and fancied a ride home in that. Can’t blame him!
Tim’s start time was a relatively laid back 10.30 in the OI and Louella was most certainly on time with Global Quest (George), Falco and Happy Boy. Tim’s plans went west however in a garage in Crewkerne when he suffered a vehicle malfunction which may or may not have been caused by human error. Hats off to the team at Tweseldown who could not have been more helpful and despite running a good hour and a half late they accommodated both George and Falco’s tests which was very nice of them. Happy had a later start time anyway so he was sunbathing at the truck and counting his lucky stars that he had copped Tweseldown and not Oasby. The showjumping stewards were also very amicable and let Tim jump Falco and George late and out of order…it must be that shiny yellow thing in the sky that makes everyone much nicer!
Falco was delighted to be back in the game after his season ended at Kentucky 5 star in 2025 and he strutted his stuff to comfortably win the dressage in his section by a good 4 points on 25.5. George was good but made a few errors like breaking in his first medium trot to sit on a 31.4 before we headed down to the showjumping which was in its usual March space at the bottom of the truck park.
Watching Falco warm up and jump is such a special thing to do. He is clearly beyond delighted to be back and he still throws the shapes that he did as a 4 year old when everyone said “Oh, he’ll get wise”. As Tim commented, he does it just because he loves to jump like that so much and it really is amazing that at 17 he’s still so damn cool over a fence! He jumped his usual immaculate clear then sauntered back to the truck with all the swagger of the coolest kid on the block.
George warmed up nicely then somewhat inexplicably ploughed through fences 2 and 3 before recovering his composure and then jumped beautifully home. It was a bit like Pau 2.0 which is something Tim plans to address with some specific training.
Falco literally cantered around the track for 20 time and had a ball, George went a bit quicker for 12 time and a solid clear. Meanwhile Happy had concluded his mornings sunbathing, had a lunge and was delighted to have Tim all to himself for the afternoon. He won his section dressage with a 24.1, show jumped a beautiful clear and smugly proved me wrong cross country. Tim had mentioned he was a tad worried about the ditch in the coffin for Happy, I had laughed and pointed out that he stops at the ditch in the coffin every year at Tweseldown. Clearly Happy overheard this conversation and I’m happy to say did what Happy does and confounded all of us by jumping a beautiful clear round cross country and I think, possibly, his first ever clear at March Tweseldown. The one thing you can count on with Happy is that he will always call the shots.
It was sublime to be not frozen at Tweseldown. There were even some uber hardy types without coats on and I spotted one man in shorts although he did look like that type that insist on wearing shorts all year, possibly a post man in his day job. The sun shone all day, the breeze was minimal and the vibe was most definitely spring time. Happy days!