Jess Montgomery’s PRO Derby X Report

(For those that weren’t already down in Wellington, Florida, the mass exodus took place sometime on Friday to be down there in time for the Calcutta auction early that evening. Clark and Jess left their winter base in Ocala with Carl Bouckaert’s horse Reignman, Clark’s ride for the night, and we’ll let Jess continue the story.  All following photos taken by and used with the kind permission of Jess Montgomery.)

[Link: Free Video Replay of the Derby Cross on USEF Network]

From Jess:

I think one of my favourite storylines from the whole weekend is that Jennie Brannigan stepped up and bought Team Guardian at the Calcutta. People were beginning to lag off a bit, and there wasn’t much bidding going on, so a couple of the riders stepped up and raised their hands to get the bidding going which was awesome, but I’m pretty sure Jennie didn’t count on  being stuck with the Team! I think it went to $1,500. We went out to dinner with her on Friday night, and we laughed with her, but I could tell her she was a little bit uncomfortable with it even though she said it was okay.  Also her truck had broken down on the way here so that was sitting in the dealership and she was a bit stressed about that on top of everything. She was giving Clark a hard time on Friday night, in a nice way, but I think she was more concerned about Clark doing well than herself so she could win some of the money back!  Lo and behold it all turned out well though, and she can afford to get her truck fixed now, so taking the risk turned out to be well worth it! 

(From Samantha Lendl: “When the Calcutta takes place 10% of the proceeds goes to Operation Homefront, 10% goes back to PRO to cover expenses, and then there’s a split and  55% goes to the winning owner – Jennie in this case, and the rest goes into the prize money pool for the Team.  The overall Grand Total raised at the Calcutta was $22,500.”)

It was a fun night, Will Faudree’s owner Jennifer Mosing was on the ‘phone and she did a call-in bid to buy his team for about $9,000, and I think Boyd’s team went for about $4,500, and the rest of them went for between $1,500 and $2,000. We were the bargain team! Jennie was definitely very nervous, and then very excited, but it was all good! If we’d had to pick a team to beat we would have thought Buck’s team that won last year, they’re really fast; between Bruce, Buck, Will Faudree who rides like his horse’s tail is on fire, and Aaron Vale who’s crazy-competitive and very, very good, we would definitely have thought they would have been the quickest.

Heading to Practice, Saturday morning

The way that they have it set up is they had a separate tent at the back of the show-ground for all the DerbyX horses, and a practice ring with three solid fences and the practice show jumps. Everybody had 30 minutes allotted to their team, and some people took advantage of it, and others didn’t; it just gave everyone a chance to stretch their horses’ legs a little bit, no-one really went over the top. I think it was mostly the polo players who really wanted to come and practice because they were really the ones who haven’t done anything like that before; there were a few familiar faces from last year, maybe three guys who were repeats, but the rest of them were new to the scene.  Those guys are just awesome coming out, they always have a really great time, they definitely rib each other pretty hard about it, they’re super-competitive so for them to do something so far out of their comfort zone is really fun to watch, they’re hysterical! 

The riders spent most of the day together. Although everyone teased each other a lot about the teams, I think everybody actually felt quite a bit of pressure to show up and perform as an individual, and then hopefully their team would do pretty well. For example, Aaron Vale came out the ring and quipped, “I got my job done, that’s how you do the business!” They were really funny. We had a briefing at 9am, then picked up our saddle pads and polo shirts at 2pm so we all got together again for that. The course walk was at 5pm, and then once the performance started all the horses had arrived because there was a parade at the beginning to introduce everyone, and then all the horses just stand around with their coolers on and sort of hold the earth down for a little bit! Everyone’s there in the warm-up area visiting and watching everyone else go. 

Shannon and Will Faudree’s horse

I was actually very impressed that people bring their really nice horses; for example for Karen O’Connor to ride Veronica and Phillip Dutton to ride William Penn, those are definitely their top string horses. It was really fun to watch the eventers  go on their nice horses, and the jumpers were just outstanding in the ring. Clark commented that the jumpers think the eventers are crazy for going at the speeds we do across an open field to fixed obstacles, but the speeds that they can go in a ring to a fence is just incredible, with the turns that they’re making, they’re flat out! They’re in perfect balance and control, but wheeling round those corners, unbelievable, and very cool to watch! It’s definitely high energy when you’re there watching.  The polo players ride around with one hand most of the time, and we were surprised how soft they were with their hands, maybe it’s because they usually have so much hardware in their horses’ mouths and so a touch of the reins gets a response and they’re not used to being very heavy-handed? None of them had any lower leg whatsoever either, it’s either up by the horse’s shoulder or by the flank while they’re going along, but they were really, really good at just getting out of the horses’ way and letting the horses do their job and jump. 

Karen O’Connor and Veronica

Clark felt the course had a little more flow to it this year, but there were actually more problems this year. The one thing that most of the riders were talking about was the bank complex; there was a table with a bending five stride line to the bank up, and then David didn’t realise that the bank wouldn’t slow the horses down so much, so the two strides on top of the bank were very, very short, and not only that but the triple brush on top of the bank was very wide from base to base, so some of the horses that got up there, had a peek and were a bit surprised. It was just a really interesting course; there was a lot of talk about the addition of the keyhole, but the horses actually jumped through it really beautifully. I thought they did a great job. Eric Bull did the fence design for the keyhole, and he deserves a lot of credit because it really stood out in the ring as something very different from regular show-jumping.

It’s probably a little too early to tell but Reignman’s a smart horse and it didn’t seem like the whole occasion shocked him. He just took a deep breath at the end, and hung out and seemed fine with it all, and stood around for the rest of the evening with everybody else. In the grand scheme of competitive experience he’s quite green, and I don’t know that that might not be to his advantage! The older more experienced horses that are used to showing up and doing their job in a particular routine, I can imagine they might have been a bit more confused, but Reignman doesn’t have that context to compare it to. Clark says he would definitely do more DerbyX’s, that they’re fun, a good thing to go to, and change things up a little bit, but it’s a matter of being smart – like cross country you want to go quickly but not so fast that you end up having a run-out, fast enough and yet within the boundaries so that you don’t create a problem further down the line, like a glance-off or loss of focus. If there was enough funding Clark would be willing to consider designating a horse specifically for Derby X! The key to it is  only going as fast as you’re comfortable without causing a problem – that’s what makes it difficult and fun at the same time. It’s really easy to get going quicker than you think, you see mistakes happen because everything’s coming up a bit faster and your adrenalin gets going. That part of it makes it complex, but makes for good watching, and makes it a good competition!

I was very proud of him; it was a lot of fun. 

Team Results:

Individual Eventing Results:

(Reignman will now be aimed at the Equiventures CCI** at the Ocala Horse Trials in April before returning to proud owner Carl Bouckaert. Unfortunately Carl could not watch last night as he was competing at Poplar Place. Clark is aiming Loughan Glen for Rolex, and then hopes to re-locate to England for the summer where he’ll take Universe to Bramham, and I daren’t say anymore for fear of jinxing him! 

A massive Thank You and Congratulations to Jess, Clark, and Team Guardian, also to Jennie Brannigan, who, hopefully, will have a less adventurous trip home! Thank you for reading, you can follow Clark and Jess on twitter, and check out their wonderful website here. Go Derby X and Go eventing! )