Jacky Green was recommended to me as a potential EN guest writer because she is very well connected, based in the UK, a hilarious personality, and tends to write whatever comes to her mind. Jacky works for Team New Zealand and also runs her Maizey Manor Farm in the UK, which many US competitors stay at on their route to Badminton and Burghley, including Will Faudree, whose horses arrived at Maizey Manor this morning.
Before I posted this, I emailed Jacky asking her to send me a quick bio and what she sent me was at once hilarious, self deprecating, and completely unpublishable. The bio started with: “Jacky Green evented to the advanced level on some unbelievable horses given the fact that she could not see a distance but she was incredibly good at having fabulous pictures due to the fact that she never made time…” It went on from there and frankly I was amazed at the number of people Jacky could incriminate along with herself in a 4 sentence self bio. So without further ado, and with apologies to “wiflets” everywhere, thanks for writing this Jacky and thank you for reading.
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Longleat in a good year
From Jacky:
In a wet and soggy UK, the big class of the weekend was at the home of the Marquess of Bath, a slightly (to say the least) eccentric character who has some 60 or 70 “wifelets” (monogamy clearly not being his strong point) and a whole safari park surrounding one of the most beautiful estates in England. It is the only event where sea lions frolic in the river at the edge of the dressage arenas, wolves can be heard howling in the early morning and the lions are not far away. Quite obviously this makes for some interesting dressage tests and more dogs on leads that normally seen.
This year Longleat was celebrating its 25th anniversary and were rewarded by incessant rain which decimated the ground into a quagmire and after abandoning the novice day on Saturday the remaining intermediate classes were canceled with just the 75 starter CIC remaining on the Sunday. On the Sunday just 21 of the original 75 in the CIC completed the event with only 13 achieving a qualifying score.
With 5 eliminations, 12 retirements and 27 withdrawals I think the conditions are well reflected in the stats! England in June, you just never know what you are going to get and after months of rock hard ground it was a shock to horses and riders alike. Kitty King showed she was no fair weather rider with a one, two with Zidante and General Opposition and no doubt this morning Lord Bath is surveying his estate with a sense of disbelief that our drought has ended with such a dramatic flourish of strength by the elements.
