Eventing reports
Aldon 1 horse trials 2011
A foot perfect performance from Sam Griffith and Happy Times finally halted fellow “Aussie” Paul Tapner’s four year domination of the Advanced Intermediate at the spring Aldon fixture. The pair had been lying fifth after dressage, added nothing more in the show jumping and then cruised around the cross country, inside the optimum time, to move up into first place and so the lovely silver Alpin Horse trophy will now grace the homes for owners Dinah Posford and Juliet Donald for the next year “This is the second time I managed to take a trophy from Paul and I’ve told him now I want the “big” one (Badminton) next!” a delighted Sam said “This is our second run of the season but at Tweseldown I just cantered him round. Today there were some good galloping stretches so I let him open up and he made the time easily.” Sam, who managed a short trip home to Australia over the winter to visit his family, was particularly pleased to have his first big win of the season at Aldon as it is now his local event. “This is the perfect start to our Badminton build up, with it being so early this year I want to get in as many good runs as possible” he said.
Fiona Hobby returned from injury (see Coarse Chat) to take second place on her husband Jolyon’s grey mare Roma M.L. Fiona was delighted with their dressage mark of 29.8 as she explained “When I was working in she was just so excited that I thought we would be lucky to stay in the arena but the fact that I was a bit out of control seemed to make the test flow much better” Ireland’s Aoife Clark added nothing more to the dressage marks of both her rides, Master Crusoe and Vaguely North, to take third and sixth.
Not to be out done Paul Taper still managed to take some silver ware home as he won the first of the Open Intermediate classes riding Jane Gwillim-David’s Carry on Joseph. The pair also had their first run at Tweseldown but as Paul explained things hadn’t gone quite to plan there “He was a little bit over the top and too excited to be out so I’ve put a lot more work into him this week” . Matthew Heath, with Jules Hodgkinson’s Gran Chaco, completed on the same total as Paul, 30.8, to finish second with Nick Gauntlett taking third on Rocket Science.
Emily Philp finally cracked her show jumping problem with Mrs Grahame Knowles’ Plutonium as their clear round and fast cross country secured the win in OI section R. Emily’s step-grandmother bought the bay gelding over from Ireland as a four year old, he’s by the thoroughbred stallion Actinium out of an Irish Draught mare, and sold him to her friend Mrs Knowles for Emily to ride. “Because of our show jumping we managed to get to this level without every winning anything” Emily explained “but I’ve had a lot of help recently from Alec Trickett, who is based near to me in Shropshire, and he’s taught me to believe in myself” Sophie Hearle celebrated her 40th birthday, she had reached the milestone the previous day, by taking second on Western Rainbow with Victoria Carlerback and the veteran Bally’s Geronimo in third.
Tim Rogers on his own Corrieview Owen took the top honours in the Red Mills sponsored OI under 21 class, finishing on their dressage mark of 33.2. Tim, who left school just over a year ago to concentrate on eventing, was pleased to have come out so strongly at their first event. “We’d like to go Advanced this year and maybe do a CIC***” he said “but the main aim is to make the Young Rider team” A show jump down for both of Dani Evans’ rides Uchin and Raphael II rather marred their good dressage marks but she still finished in second and third places.
Daniel Sibley’s excellent dressage mark of 23.2 on his new ride Jovial Valantino put him a strong position to win Intermediate section P and relegated his mentor Andrew Nicholson, riding Music Master, to second place.
Kate Allen and Final Encore also capitalized on their good dressage score of 24.1 to take section O.
Glorious spring sunshine plus David Batten and Adrian Ditcham’s well judged cross country course once again provided the perfect start to the season for a large entry of riders.
Coarse Chat.
Fiona Hobby didn’t exactly have the ideal preparation for the start of the 2011 season as she broke her foot in an “incident” on the dance floor at a New Year party and has spent six weeks in plaster. “I came to Aldon having done just one show jumping competition which makes our result all the more pleasing” she said.
Having reached her mile stone 4Oth birthday Sophie Hearn, second in OI section R, has decided to take a “gap” couple of years from her job as an English teacher to concentrate on eventing. She is now working for her trainer, Chris Hall, and plans to see how far she can go with go with her 11 year old skewbald.
Back from the Brink
After a break of almost two years it was good to see Henry Tankerville, piloted by Andrew Nicholson, back in action again and finishing fourth in OI section Q. The horse’s last run was when winning an Advanced class at Weston Park in 2009 and has since been off with a tendon injury. Owner Mark Chamberlayne explained “He was never really lame but it had the potential to be a serious injury so we’ve given him a long lay off and will take it an event at a time but would like to qualify him for a three star at the end of the year.