Welcome to the Festival of British Eventing presented by BETA at Gatcombe.
Harry and I walked the British Open course first thing this morning, and with the terrain, it’s as tough a course as I’ve seen this year. The field of entries is both full in quantity and quality, and the next three days promise to be jam-packed if you add on the Burghley Young Event Horse Qualifiers, Express Eventing, Pony Club Jumping, two full advanced classes running alongside the Championship divisions, of course the Shetland Pony Grand National and Dog Agility, and that’s before we even start on the Tradestands (over a hundred), the food, drinks and the Pimms Tent. I am back in England, the mecca of Eventing and there’s few events better than this. Here is your British Open Cross Country Course, designed by Captain Mark Phillips and built by The Willis Bros, (of Badminton fame and more) David Evans and Richard Taylor, fence by fence.
The course gets serious at fence 3, there’s an alternative because the straight route sits on the lip of a very steep descent, and into the dark woods. I took a couple of pictures to try and illustrate the angle!
I’m sad to report Harry may be the first casualty of the weekend as he fell in a heap at the bottom of the hill; obviously I won’t be applying for “Mother of the Year” after this holiday!
The table here is massive
This is right out on the “back 40” of the course, and riders have to do a U-turn between A & B, so it will just depend on how tight they want to make their approach to this big solid brush as to how much time they waste/save.
I feel like there was just one toadstool here last year, and it’s surely too early for me to be seeing double? Nonetheless, after a steep climb, even if is a slightly different profile, it’s still bound to catch out the unwary.
This is the only water this year – in over the log drop, and out over one of the loops of the monster, depending on your grade
By now, near the end of Sunday afternoon, it’s getting really exciting as time is everything at Gatcombe, and as the British Open is run in reverse order for cross country which is the final phase, the riders are kicking for home as much as they dare, or with as much petrol as they have left in the tank.
What a Feeling – home at last!
Wishing all competitors safe rounds this weekend, and looking forward to bringing you lots more from Gatcombe. Go British Eventing!
