Stable View Advanced Cross Country Course Preview

Jump into the arena at #3! Photo by Kate Samuels.

I just got a chance to zoom around the cross country course at Stable View Farm for the inaugural Advanced horse trials on a golf cart with the organizer, Anne Dearborn. All of the jumps for this level are brand new and are just waiting to be christened tomorrow by the first on course. Designed by Capt. Mark Phillips and built by Eric Bull, this course is definitely full of decent questions for the level, as well as terrain and turning that will add an extra facet of difficulty.

The course starts out confidently, with two good fences before the unique third fence, in which you drop down a little dip and then jump over an angled log into the arena where you just recently completed your dressage test (the arena sides will be removed, obviously), gallop across the ring, and then out over an airy log oxer at four, which features a frangible pin system on both front and back logs. This course is littered with frangible pins at every possible location, making every effort to ensure the safety of horse and rider should something go awry.

Two table fences away from this, we encounter the brand new water complex in the derby field, which serves as the first of three water combinations on the course. This is a simple 7AB with a straight shot in over an inviting fence and down to a relatively friendly chevron. I should mention that all of the fences have been beautifully decorated by Diane Dzingle, who has been a nurseryman for more than twenty years; 95 percent of the course decorations are live all-natural plants.

The new water complex in the derby field. Photo by Kate Samuels.

We get to have a little gallop after this before coming down to an iconic Mark Phillips fence, the Elephant Trap at 8. This fence looks mighty impressive coming up to it, but it has a lovely inviting slope to the front and will ride quite well. I think the jump at 9 is a surprising question, as the fence initially seems to the horse like a plain table, but the ground is higher on the backside, so it is more like a step up and the riders won’t want to come banging down to it and shock their horses on the offside.

The Little Murray Water Complex sports a solid 6-foot drop over a brush log and then quite a few strides to a very decent brush corner after you exit the water. For those trying to get close to the optimum time of 6 minutes and 19 seconds, they will make a very quick right-handed turn and put on the gas to the hanging log oxer at 11.

The question at 12ABC is certainly where things start to get serious, and if you had trouble at the right-handed corner at 10B, you might be considering the time-costly black flag option for this next right-handed corner, which slopes off down the hill. Down you gallop after that to the Flying Cross, which is another impressive fence courtesy of Mark Phillips’ design style.

Fence 13. Photo by Kate Samuels.

After that we have a terrain question along with two separately numbered corners, where the riders can decide to take the quick route or do a loop if they’re having an educational round. There are a fair amount of very experienced horses here this weekend, but there are also a good number of horses moving up to the level, so the course has provided options along the way for horses who might not be quite ready for some of the questions.

As we head to the back of the property, we finally get some real galloping time, plus some big tables to re-establish a rhythm. The Sunken Road Complex at 18ABCD is the type of question we don’t get to see much anymore, but will reward straight and bold riding, as well as courageous and scopey horses.

Fence 18. Photo by Kate Samuels.

After the sunken road, the horses get to gallop up a good hill nearing the end, and then the riders have to make a decision about how they contour their U-turn to the final water complex at 19AB, with the cabin on the hill and the boat in the water. There are lots of pine trees dotted here and there in this course, and riders will really have to walk their galloping tracks to be sure of the route that best works for their horses and their time goals. With $60,000 in prize money on the line, riders (ahem, Doug Payne) might have some interesting inside turns up their sleeves.

The final question is two skinny triple brushes at the end of the course to test the mental awareness of both horse and rider, as well as straightness and honesty. Stable View decided to run the event as a one-day, which is unusual for this level in the U.S., and with the course being a full 3,850 meters, some of the horses might be feeling a bit tired either mentally or physically at the end.

There are several course walks available tomorrow morning, starting with Mark Phillips at 9:30 a.m. and Boyd Martin at 10:30 a.m., if you’re in the area and want to get an up close and personal look at the fences. Boyd kicks off the action with dressage at 7:30 a.m. on Tsetserleg.

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