From Bramham Park in Yorkshire to a proper working equestrian centre in Wiltshire in the space of not a lot of hours is some form of dedication. Jonelle arrived home very late and left home very early with a trio of youngsters and Abel in tow as she has a new friend that she met at Royal Jump and was keen to meet up with her again.
Osz Lo (Tommas), Fernhill Happy Hour (Hugo) and Brookfield Royale Love (Edward) were the horses on the truck alongside Bridget with Poppins and Sean with Timonight ( Albi) and Muffin ( who has a competition name that is way too complicated to reference here) so quite the group of 100 and novice horses that arrived at WWEC in pleasantly surprising sunshine and no wind. A great start to the day after June has been nothing but a washout.
Despite the lack of sleep Jonelle was rocking it as always and with an 8.18 dressage scheduled they were there bright and early. Hugo kicked off the dressage with a 30.5 and Tommas a 32. Showjumping is on the big all weather at WWEC but the warm up is tight enough and quite challenging at this level when simple rules like left to left when passing are not known to all!
Tommas has a habit of slightly disconcertingly looking at something other than the fence in the warm up which at times included me and being stuck between an oxer and a vertical in a narrow warm up makes that not a brilliant thing to be the focus of. He does adjust his sights to the fence at the last moment though and it’s a bit like surfing in shark waters off the coast of Australia. Tommas jumped a good clear round and Jonelle returned with the Brad Pitt of the young horses in the shape of Hugo.
Hugo is channeling his inner super hero looks with a mixture of bravado and anxiety that anyone can relate to on their first prom outing. He knows he is cool, he knows he is tall and beautiful but by dear God, there are some scary things at events like… fence 1. Jonelle showed him the fence clearly and he jumped it so much better than last week and dug into his Braveheart mode so well the fence he did have down was because he was actually a bit casual at it on a related distance.
Cross country proved to be what we call ‘educational’ and basically means quite challenging. The track at WWEC throws up is own unique questions like a hedge at fence 2 leaving the security of the collecting ring field that stopped half the field. Tommas tackled it bravely as he did the rest of the course, although it sometime appeared as though Jonelle had to re adjust the sat nav as he does tend to go off at a tangent but they came home with clear jumping.
Hugo was ridden into fence 2 with what we used to call the ‘feet on the dashboard’ position as Jonelle adopted the shoulders back and kick on which was very positive and resulted in a clear jump. Hugo may have considered a stop at the next but gravity took over and he quickly adopted his knees up trajectory and headed into the water with some gusto. He did pick up a 20 on the way out which the commentator was most excited about but then gamely grew in confidence and came home quite the man.
He was rewarded for his efforts with official drug testing which he dealt with manfully. Having been taken away from his mates, stuck inside a dark stable and relieved of some 3 pints ( well, not quite) of blood and held there for half an hour he behaved magnificently. I think he thought he was being sold because of his 20 so he decided to be as good as he could be and he was very relieved to be back at the truck.
Edward was utterly solid today. A 24 dressage, a super clear and a confident cross county saw him finish in 2nd place and some more points to add to his growing collection. He gets better every week and it is delightful to see him grow in confidence with every outing.
It’s Luhmuhlen departure tomorrow with 4*S and 5*L for both Tim and Jonelle….we will keep you posted!