Buck Davidson and All the Aces had a beautiful round in the CCI 2*
It’s turned into the most beautiful day here, and the courses have ridden really well for the most part. Mistakes have spread out all over the place, and they’ve been mostly pilot error and not serious. I think this is my favourite Mark Phillips course, the horses could see their way through the combinations, it was technical enough but there was nothing trappy about it, the terrain here is lovely, so seeing as how you already got the meat and potatoes from John, without further ado I’m just going to give you my pictures, and hopefully later I’ll be able to get my videos up too.
Shannon Lilley and Ballingowan Pizazz
Buck jumps All the Aces through the Saloon
Kristin Schmolze had a really near miss over the the fence right before the Saloon, and SO nearly came off Ballylaffin Bracken, but made an astonishing recovery to get away with just 20 penalties, and here she is in Jurassic Park immediately after that.
Maya Studenmund and Shear Mizou
Jessie Phoenix had Pavarotti well anchored and they had a nice round.
The CIC2*
(not competitors, well, not in the 2*!)
James Atkinson on the first of two rides, Annie Oakley III
Jordan Taylor and Cambridge
The CIC 3*
Buck Davidson lies in second place in both the CCI 2* and the CIC 3*; he says he’s thrilled with both of his horses, and that Reggie rises to the occasion the more crowds there are. He also mentioned that last year the show-jumping was very big and difficult, and it’s all to play for on sunday. Buck’s owners are here this weekend, as well as his mother, and he joked that keeping her busy was perhaps the most pressure of the weekend! He did add that he’d managed to squeeze in a couple of rounds of golf, so it can’t be all bad! Allison told us that Arthur has been feeling so full of himself all week that she actually gave him a gallop this morning before cross country so she said he was very rideable this afternoon. She also mentioned that she is another rider who’s applying to take advantage of the Becky Broussard Grant, and if she’s lucky enough to be the recipient she would spend it on going to Badminton next year and hope for a good result there. In the meantime, Arthur will be pointed to either Fairhill or Pau this autumn.
The Advanced
As expected, Exponential and Jessica Phoenix looked fantastic, as did fellow Canadian Hawley Bennet-Awad on Gin’n’Juice; they both were on course at the same time which was quite a sight to behold. There were considerable crowds here today, watching from the hill which was great to see; the event does a great job of promoting Rebecca Farm locally. Carl Bouckaert’s Cyrano Z looked fabulous, he has such a lovely way of going, I’m a big fan of this horse. Poor Tamra Smith jumped the wrong table in the photo above, three from home. There are about four in a row, and the jump judge was sitting right by the 2* one as galloped towards her and jumped it – hopefully she won’t make that mistake again; until then Mar de Amor had looked good, throwing some pretty good jumps in there, but getting the job done.
The Open Prelim, unbelievably, is still going on. I have a few videos to upload, and the trot up is bright and early, again at 8am tomorrow, so check back soon, thanks for reading, and go eventing!
