Sunday at Wilton Horse Trials

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Hamish and Tiger doing dressage in front of Wilton House
Another day, another continent: Hamish Cargill and Sandhills Tiger are re-united in competition and emerge from their initiation into English Eventing unscathed, well, physically so. I’m sure we’ll hear more about how Hamish is coping with the after-effects on his wonderful blog, hopefully soon, hint hint, Hamish!  Credit to the beautiful turn-out of Tiger goes to Lucy Griffiths and Mouse; for Hamish, I’m not so sure.  The Aussies and Kiwis were out in full force, perhaps because they were taking advantage of the Brits celebrating a certain union in Edinburgh, or maybe I’m over thinking it!
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Hamish’s partner in crime, Chris Burton on his lovely WEG ride, Holstein Park Leilani, one of several he rode on sunday – Good luck to Hamish in finding a spot on that shared lorry!
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Australian Sam Griffiths, and gracious hero host to Hamish and Chris Burton, here on Motion Bound, also seemed to be constantly switching from one nice horse to the next.
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Clayton Fredericks on the lovely Be My Guest; a day he’d rather forget but I’ll let him explain in his own words…
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I rode at Wilton many years ago now, and I found it quite reassuring that it still looks exactly the same, most of the cross country included! Here’s former World Champion and all round Kiwi Eventing Legend Blyth Tait warming up with last year’s 7th place WEG finisher and rising Kiwi star Jock Paget. 
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Blyth is back on the scene and bidding for Olympic selection next year with Santos
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Jock now finds himself in the enviable position of having two really nice horses aiming for London next year, Clifton Lush, and his 2010 WEG ride Clifton Promise. 
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Jock Paget on Clifton Promise.
Jock told me he rates both horses very highly, and if forced to pick one, would choose Promise only because of their longer history together. Promise and Jock will do the dressage and show-jumping at Gatcombe next week, the Test Ride at Hartpury, and then have one more run before Burghley. Blyth and Santos eventually finished 2nd at Wilton, you can find all the results here. 
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Dressage: only for fans!
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The Royal Wedding notwithstanding, the Brits were still ably represented, not least by experienced Badminton 2009 and 2010 campaigners Tony Warr on Coolgrange Merger
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Mary King in grooming mode for daughter Emily, who had a great day. Mary rode in the Novice later once her duties were over!
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Longing to be out on course, or anywhere but here! 
The show-jumping was a basic course in a grass arena, not much fanfare, with an oxer, four tightish strides to a vertical in the middle that caused some trouble, and then a treble coming down the hill.  I was surprised by how well it rode on the whole, and by how well it was ridden – I think I’ve been in the States too long!  You can see a few of the rides on video here.
The cross country is quite hilly, which is useful for those using Wilton as a last prep before Gatcombe next weekend, and has a bit of everything on it: two waters, a drop, corners, skinnies, big, galloping fences and quite a few combinations. The first and last couple of fences on the intermediate course are shared with the novice, and although when you walk it, it seems straight forward enough, the course claimed it’s fair share of scalps today. You can see some of the cross country video below, but be warned, turn down the sound so you don’t hear the wind, and my two fractious children whining and arguing!
Wilton is an extremely compact event: the dressage takes place in front of the house, with limited warm up space around outside of the arenas, and verging on show-jumping warm up in one direction, and back towards the lorries and the cross country in another. The show-jumping and tradestands are the centrepiece of the event, and are bordered by the dressage on one side, the lorry park on another, and with cross country running along two other sides – sort of! – we’re getting into geometry territory a bit here, not my forte. The cross country starts and finishes in the same place, virtually in the lorry park, and so apart from walking the actual course, nothing is really more than a couple of minutes away. You can see quite a lot of the cross country from the lorry and car parks, which make it something of a social event, but I’d forgotten how busy everyone is at a normal one day event over here, and how quick you have to be if you have multiple rides – doesn’t leave much time for chatting until the end of the day, by which time my poor children were knackered, so the only thing to do was to get out and take some pictures! 
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Hamish and Tiger
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Vicky Brake
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Clayton Fredericks and Be My Guest looking good at the double of corners, but sadly came a cropper later
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The 2nd Corner
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Wendy Harris and Just Appeal
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Lucy Wiegersma on Simpson II
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Finally, I was thrilled to meet Rachel, Michael and Lily, the delightful Uptown Eventing Team today. We’ve been virtual friends for a while now, stalking each other via twitter, websites and various social media, and Uptown Eventing is a terrific source of news, but far more importantly, they find, and match you with really good horses. How good? Imperial Cavalier, Fernhill Urco and Manoir de Carneville good. Did I also mention how charming they are? I can’t think of anything more wonderful than going on a horse shopping spree with them, and we’ll be bringing you lots more about how it all works in more detail soon. Until then, I’m very glad that Lily and Harry have made a new friend on the English eventing circuit, and me too!
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The drive home was long and slow because we inevitably kept getting stuck behind horseboxes on narrow roads, but we all had a terrific day at Wilton, and now after squeezing in some visits to more family and friends this week, we’ll be gearing up for the Festival of British Eventing presented by BETA next weekend at Gatcombe, what a treat. Go English Eventing!
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