TFW you travel so far north of London that clocks haven’t been invented yet. Photo courtesy of Tilly Berendt.
Hello, Eventing Nation, and welcome to somewhere very, very north! Somewhere higher than Edinburgh! Somewhere I had to get on a plane to get to, even though I’ve been reliably informed that I’m still on the same land-mass as my sort-of-London home. That’s right, chums — this week, Chinch has donned his sporran and we’ve headed to the Land Rover Blair Castle International Horse Trials, where we’ll be reporting on all the action from the CCI3*, the CIC3*, the exciting finale of the 2018 Event Rider Master series, and, most importantly, all the hilarious things we spot Scottish people doing.
You see, Scotland is just like the rest of the world, only slightly more bonkers. They like trees, so there are lots of trees around. Normal stuff. Except in the late 18th century, a chap named Alexander Nasmyth decided that there weren’t enough trees on the rocky crags around Blair Atholl (which isn’t quite pronounced how you’d like to pronounce it, you naughty readers).
Anyway, Nasmyth — whose son James invented the jackhammer, which sets this story up for an awful lot of very rude jokes — was a creative sort of chap, and wasn’t to be deterred by the fact that said crags were impossible for a human to scale. No, Nasmyth wanted trees, and now the Duke of Atholl (LOL) wanted trees too, and so they came up with a marvellous plan to get the trees from ground level up onto the mountainous crags. They loaded a bunch of cannons up with seedlings and they quite literally SHOT them at the rocks. Anyway, there’s loads of trees there now, so which Atholl has the last laugh? The Atholls of yesteryear, that’s who.
They like Twitter, too, which is something we can all relate to, right? Social media is great and definitely hasn’t created an imperceptible but impassable barrier in normal human communication and decency. Anyway, the Scots do Twitter, so you can interact with them at your leisure, except…
Try to tell me that Scottish Twitter isn’t the best thing you’ve ever seen. Just TRY.
They also like ponies, but unlike their nice, normal, staid English neighbours, they aren’t content with the #PonyClubAndChill way of life. Instead, they like to take their Highland ponies out into the wilderness to go deerstalking and also probably Loch Ness monster hunting. Your children put bows in their plaits and jump rustic fences; their children haul stags onto their ponies’ backs and fight for Scottish independence in kilts. It’s cool.
Anyway, so far so good at Blair. No one’s stolen Chinch and inserted him into a haggis (that’s a sheep’s stomach filled with unidentifiable ground meat chunks, obviously), there’s an incredibly beautiful castle to explore, and a veritable smorgasbord of eventers have made the long journey north to participate in this week’s event.
Laura Collett and Sir Papillon trot up for the CCI2*. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
The competition got off to a flying start today with the Hi Ho Jewellery sponsored first horse inspection, wherein the CCI1*, 2*, and 3* horses were presented to the ground jury. Just one horse was spun — Daniel Scott‘s Thatsmylot will not, unfortunately, be contesting the CCI1* — and the rest of the horses were passed by Blair’s ground jury.
Michael Jackson is Best-Dressed Gent at the first horse inspection. Photo by Lindsay Robertson/Hi Ho Silver.
The Hi Ho Silver team awarded two best-dressed awards — a ladies’ award and a gents’ award — across the three classes. These were given to Chelsea Pearce and Michael Jackson. (No, not that one.)
Chelsea Pearce tops the sartorial stakes. Photo by Lindsay Robertson/Hi Ho Silver.
Each of the CCI classes will proceed with dressage tomorrow, while the large CIC3* class will begin on Friday and the ERM kicks off on Saturday. We’ve got some of the top-ranked eventers in the world here — from Oliver Townend, who brings forth six entries, to Tim and Jonelle Price, who’ve carted a lorryload up.
Pack your tweed and your barely concealed terror, kids: we’re going on a wild ride this week.
We’ll be bringing you all the action (and some of the haggis) as it happens – keep it loched on EN for everything you need to know! (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?! DID YOU SEE???? I’ll be here all week. I really will.)
Land Rover Blair Castle International Horse Trials: Website, Schedule, Live Stream, Event Rider Masters, Live Scores, EN’s Coverage
