Jacky Green — Salperton Park and Team Faudree Arrives

Tonight we get installment number two of Jacky Green’s guest blogs for Eventing Nation. Jacky works for Team New Zealand and also runs her Maizey Manor Farm in the UK, which many US competitors stay at on their route to Badminton and Burghley, including Will Faudree, which you will hear about below.  Thanks for writing this Jacky and thank you for reading. 
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From Jacky:

After the mud, winds and torrential rain that led to the abandonment of Longleat last weekend it was great to see blue skies and sunshine over Salperton Park in the heart of the Cotwolds with the bonus of perfect going and a high class field that relished a strong track in both the novice and the intermediate sections.

Salperton is usually the venue where the big guns resume their season after the spring 3 days and it was no exception this time as Saumur and Badminton horses bounced back into the frame. Aoife Clarke won the first of the strongly contested AI sections with her Master Crusoe who so impressed on his Badminton debut with Andrew Nicholson hot on her heels with Nereo while in the other section Izzy Taylor and Briarlands Matilda held off the Kiwi challenge from Mark Todd and NZB Campino. Some 600 horses ran over the two days and some of the newest recruits from overseas were somewhat surprised at the fact that the top guys over here run six horses in all three phases in one day and return the next day with six more, walk up to three courses at once and learn three or four different tests to ride on the same day. It all happens pretty fast over here and a good support team is essential, Andrew Nicholsons truck being usually rewarded the most efficient prize with horses running on a conveyor belt throughout the day. Abject chaos surrounds some of the trucks and as the temperatures rose on Sunday afternoon there was a sudden influx of horseflies which sent more than a few of the horses into a bucking biting frenzy and quote of the day came from J P Sheffield when his owner whacked one on his horses’ chest: “Its only a fly Angela, no need to break his ribs!”

Meanwhile as the temperature dropped on Monday morning Will Faudree was getting pretty hot and bothered at Heathrow airport as he was detained by immigration. With Pawlow and Andromaque already enjoying being back in the UK and 2 more en route from America it was looking very likely that Mr Faudree would be deported and Nat Varcoe-Cocks and I would be tossing up for the rides at Barbury. It would appear that the words “work” and “teach” came out of Will’s mouth (which for anyone who knows Will is a strange thing to say at any time) and an unimpressed immigration officer decided to give me a call to test my thinking on my feet skills which may have worked out a little better if at that precise moment I was not simultaneously hanging out washing, unloading the dishwasher, texting a friend and feeling the need for more coffee. His opening line of talking about a Mathew Faudree tipped me just a tad off balance but I clearly managed to persuade the nice man with the strange accent that Will was a man who travelled the World just playing with his ponies for the fun of it. Drama over for just a short while before Nat then decided to for some unknown reason be incapable of starting the car she has driven for the last week before Will the hero took over and actually inserted the key into the ignition which helped enormously. Day one of team Faudree, its going to be an interesting run up to Burghley!

[Salperton Park]

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