Jacky Green returns to EN this weekend with a look at the unaffiliated Mattingley HT in the UK. As usual, it’s a mix of brilliant insight and hilarity. Jacky works for Team New Zealand and also runs her Maizey Manor Farm in the UK and she is a regular Eventing Nation contributor. Thanks for writing this Jacky and thank you for reading.
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From Jacky:
As all the grown ups and big guns prep for Badminton and Rolex and Eventing Nation is awash with news of both I think it is time we took a quick look at the other end of the scale as we went “undercover” on Saturday to an unaffiliated intro and pre novice event in the UK. Now to be fair although Esib Power is Badminton bound with September Bliss, we did have 3 ex racehorses on the truck, one of whom never made it to the track, the second we purchased from Alan King after Burghley last year, and the third we purchased two weeks ago and actually ran in a race just three Saturdays ago. So we were genuinely allowed to go under the British Eventing radar.
Mattingley was a hugely popular British Eventing venue and its status as “unaffiliated” has in no way demoted it… it features great dressage arenas, fabulous showjumping course and an unbelievably presented cross country. All good so far except that our undercover mission was swiftly going wrong as we bumped into NZ International Lizzie Brown, London bound (for Jamaica) Sam Albert, 4 star stalwart Vikki Brake….. for our first venture into the unknown it seemed quite normal. I had made the hideous error of rocking up to a horse trials in jods and chaps as I thought no one would spot me looking like a wannabee and I was running very late. I was utterly transfixed by the amount of coloured and spotty horses on show….our beautiful thoroughbreds looked very out of place and as I am a total horse snob in that I hate anything not of the same hue throughout I was swiftly put in my place as it transpired if you were not on either of the aforementioned you would not score under 30 in the dressage come what may.
The commentary was hysterical….one hapless girl ploughed straight through the in of the double as her horse tried to stop but slipped. She lay on the ground flat out and as her steed galloped riderless round the ring she was told “stay lying down, there is a loose horse in the arena” in what surely would have had me on my feet in nano seconds but she dutifully lay there until it was caught! Damn these guys are brave! Then there was “Mason”, who set out cross country in a determined tranter (yes, Wayne Roycroft’s description of a horse that canters in front but trots behind). We were told that the rider “was suffering from a broken foot. In fact it was Mason that trod on her and broke it. Bless him.” As Mason thundered past with feet like dinner plates I felt for his rider….and I am sure she did not say Bless Him when it happened.
The family exchanges were beyond encouraging to hear…. If they were eliminated it was because “that idiot at the yard told me to practice, it never works”, “ I think he got tired” and my personal favourite, “ well I asked you to get late times, he never wants to go first thing”. Some of these horse were just amazing. They quite often jumped from impossible spots, sussed out the fence from trot, canter, steeplechase speed. You name it they did it. They chipped, they stood off, they bolted at them, but amazingly apart from a few rider tip offs they remained upright. There are a whole ton of horses out there that just know their job and hats off to them as much as our 4 star heroes. Sometimes it’s good to go watch them just being someone else’s hero and know that if a horse is honest and genuine they do have a job and a lovely life.
And for us……well, they all went well but no one could accuse us of pothunting as we won nothing!
