Hartpury results

Great day at Hartpury - Bay My Hero won the CIC3* on a score of 37.9, followed closely by Luxury FH in 5th on 45.9 and Fernhill Pimms in 7th on 47.1

Bay My Hero was fantastic giving me my first win at Hartpury since Moon Man in 2008.   He held on to his lead with a very good show jumping clear. Overall the course rode well and didn't cause much trouble but it was certainly up to height. Fridays rain combined with the hard work the Hartpury team had put in gave us some of the best ground we have had this year. So I thought it was a good opportunity to let all the horses go, to give them a good run and bring on their fitness.

I think for the first two fences Bay My Hero thought I had gone mad, but he soon settled in to the rhythm.  He gave me a superb and very polished ride coming in with 0.8 of a time fault.  It was a nice surprise to win, and I was very pleased for Sarah Bullimore and Ibby Macpherson who had excellent runs to finish second and third.

Fernhill Pimms just hit the planks in the show jumping but I was happy with how well he jumped, he was brilliant cross country and finished comfortably with 4 time faults, in 7th place.

Luxury jumped a superb clear in the show jumping moving steadily up the order and then his excellent cross country with 2.4 time faults meant he finished in fifth place.

Both horses really benefited from their run at Gatcombe, and felt very confident and within themselves round the cross country and for me, at quite a decent speed!

This will hopefully have set all three horses up well for their autumn three days, Luxury might get another quiet run before Blenheim. But for Bay My Hero and Pimms it is hopefully Burghley then Blair next.

Praise must be given to the Hartpury team for the brilliant job they did running so many horses, the work they had gone in to preparing the cross country was hugely appreciated and was reflected in how many runners there were.  There were several holds on course due to broken frangibles, so pressure was on to get through a hectic cross country day, however it is really important that we have these frangibles and the odd delay is a very small price to pay.