Osberton roundup

There is a lot to write about for the past few days at Osberton, it has certainly been eventful and not one of my most successful weekends.  

Friday

Dressage happily went on improving a bit on Friday and in the 7yo class Shannondale Percy produced a lovely test to score 43 which put him in the lead for the whole day.  Quite something to be in the lead when you are first in. 

Yes I Can also produced a good test with a couple of small mistakes to be on 48, and still in contention.  

The day came to a fantastic close with Georgisaurous taking the lead in the 6yo on a score of 39.3.  It was the best test he has done, and it was unheard of for me to get a mark in the 30's when judged by Annabel Scrimgeour!

Saturday

The day started with the show jumping and Shannondale Percy was first in and jumped a superb clear that was never in doubt.  A couple in his arena went ahead of him on Saturday in the dressage so he was now in third place, but very much in contention and very exciting as there was a huge entry in the class. 

Yes I Can frustratingly had a couple of poles, which was perhaps was the mud, but he jumped a decent round so I can't be too disappointed.  

 It was then on to cross country, and first of mine to go was Seventh Heaven.  The warm up at Osberton is always rather electric which was to his disadvantage as he jumped the first five fences on the course somewhat crazily.  I did not feel I had enough control to continue so pulled him up as he is a very good cross country horse and this is very out of character.

It was FC Torino's turn next, and I felt it was quite a good course for him, however he gave me quite a demanding ride, and very sadly got rather tired and had a couple of runouts so I retired.  He is a lovely horse and I have had high hopes for him but I was very disappointed with how he coped with his first three-day.  David and Lucy Pease very supportingly came to watch but it was obviously very disappointing for them to see.

I then decided not to run Annaliese as I felt the course was not riding well enough to take a horse with her level of experience.

So all in all it was not a sterling 2* day.

Finally it was show jumping again with Georgisaurous who had finished the dressage still in the lead, so the pressure was on.  He very frustratingly rolled one pole which was expensive, but I had taken quite a tight line to the fence so it was probably my fault and this dropped him to third place.  Jolly annoying!

Sunday

So the final day was all about the age class cross country and it was the 2* horses first.  I was on Yes I Can first as the cross country was going in reverse order.  Yes had a totally unfortunate mishap, he completely misread a corner fence and ended up jumping into the middle of it and bursting frangibles everywhere.  We both ended up on the floor but luckily came away from it unscathed, and I guess I must just put it down to one of those things.  I don't think it will have worried him too much but he did not have an ideal last run before Lion.

It was then onto the show jumping again with George who had finished the dressage still in the lead, so the pressure was on.  He very frustratingly rolled one pole which was expensive, but I had taken quite a tight line to the fence so it was probably my fault and this dropped him to third place.  Jolly annoying!

Sunday

So the final day was all about the age class cross countries and it was the 2* horses first and I was on Yes as the cross country was going in reverse order.  Yes had a totally unfortunate mishap, he completely misread a corner fence and ended up jumping into the middle of it and bursting frangibles everywhere.  We both ended up on the floor but luckily came away from it unscathed, and I guess I must just put it down to one of those things.  I don't think it will have worried him too much but he did not have an ideal last run before Lion.

It was then onto Shannondale Percy, and as I hadn't got around the cross country yet the pressure was on.  Percy gave me a fantastic ride and really coped well with the ground, he finished with 1.2 time faults and I was delighted, until it was announced that I had got 50 penalties for jumping the wrong side of the flag.  When I heard this I really thought it was someone's sense of humour giving me a hard time, as I had knocked a flag down but he had totally jumped the fence so I had never thought it would be an issue.  Anyway 50 penalties it was so he was out of the money.  I decided to lodge an objection as I felt this was too ridiculous to be true, and luckily the ground jury came out on my side and decided I had jumped the fence, and I would hold onto third place.  Quite a different outcome but quite concerning that had I not complained no one would have looked at my footage and no one would have taken my penalties away.  

My last ride of the day was on Georgisaurous in the 6yo and he too was a bit on the electric side.  The course was well within his ability but he was in overdrive and I wasted quite a lot of time regaining control, so ended up with 2 time fault, we moved down into 6th place which was disappointing.  I am going to have to think about brakes for next year, but overall I could not be happier with how he has come on this season, he is hugely admired and is one for the future.  

The BEDE team had done a fantastic job at Osberton it was one crazy weekend with more horses running than you could imagine.  There was plenty of good fun in the evenings and everyone had a good time.  The British Eventing AGM was held there again and the members were voting on a new BE board member.  Can you believe that out of 11,500 members only 967 bothered to vote.  That is such an embarrassment, and who can say anything against BE if they care so little.

Osberton survived the bad weather mainly but conditions were pretty tough overall, and the ground was generally trashed by the number of horses running.  The team worked hard to role areas and move fences, but in my opinion they really failed the 6yo Championships in the show jumping.  Over eighty 7yo's had jumped in the morning and no one bothered to move a single fence before we jumped the same course.  The ground was not atrocious but this was a National Championships and conditions for the 6yo's were simply not good enough, I was last to go on Georgisaurous so it was probably a miracle that he only had one down.

My view going forward is that Osberton should be focusing on the British Eventing Age Championships, and not trying to run a 1 and 2* to boot, there is nowhere else and we are very lucky that Stuart is prepared to do it.  

We are on our way home now and looking forward to an easier week.  I wish the BEDE team at Osberton a speedy recovery, they must all be on their knees right now.