News
Eventing Club
By joining the eventing club you will get discounts & exclusive invitations to special events.
Calendar
Take a look at our calendar and see what William is up to.
Follow Us
Osberton round up
04-October-2016
04-October-2016 17:41
in General
by Admin
Overall we had a happy trip to Osberton. It was the last ‘big one’ of the season so it was excellent that they all performed nicely.
Volcan du Barquet had a very successful and promising show, after his dressage of 37 which would have scored even better had he not made a couple of mistakes. His cross country was lovely and smooth. I took him all the direct routes and he did the time easily and moved up the order into 4th place. There was a massive entry of 125 so this was quite an achievement. He came through the cross country well and jumped a lovely clear on Sunday. He felt that having a fence down was no risk and that he had really come on from his Blair experience, however unfortunately I managed to get 1 time fault which dropped him palace to 5th. I didn’t feel I was going slowly but the time fault was certainly not his fault!
With the sad loss of Weston Park, the pressure with these huge numbers has really be on Osberton.
The Graduate was having his last run in the 6year old final and I could not have expected him to perform much better. He does seem to be able to do everything quite easily and this time it happily came together. He did a very nice test and was relaxed to score 40 despite a couple of errors. He jumped a super clear show jumping taking all the atmosphere in his stride. He held on to his fourth place with a confident clear cross country. He found the course quite straight forward and finished just one second over the time, holding onto his fourth place.
Little Fire was in the 7yo final which was at CIC2* level. He mainly did a very pleasing dressage, but I was disappointed with his score of 48 which was off the pace. He however then show jumped a superb clear round, he was very excited and lively but managed to focus and jump in a good way. His clear round moved him up to an unremarkable 9th place. The cross country was good with some educational questions and he came up with all the answers excellently and I moved him on a bit, but still surprisingly had to settle for 5 time faults and that dropped him down to 11th. I felt I would not have wanted to go any faster on a 7yo at this stage and was quite surprised by how quick the time was. Overall the 2* experience will have done him the world of good, and I am certainly looking forward to how he comes out next season. Jenny Dowling his owner and I have decided not to take him to the 7yo Championship at Lion d’Angers, I feel that there might well be too much fuss returning to Lion just a year after my fall and I really don’t want any unnecessary attention.
So that leaves us with just three one more days to go to with the young horses, which will hopefully be good fun and we can all wind up the season in one piece.
Stuart Buntine did a fantastic job with Osberton, how they cope with numbers who knows, but they did put on a good show. The team of helpers that they have there should really be thanked as they are so nice and friendly and do a superb job for an amazing amount of hours. My only comment would be it is such a shame that it is so expensive and the prize money is so low, but we can all dream on that this will not always be the case, and Osberton is an enjoyable event for riders and owners.
