It would be interesting if William Fox-Pitt’s head groom Jackie had strapped a pedometer on at the beginning of the week to see how many London Marathons she would have completed by now, as I never cease to bump into her doing seemingly endless laps of the Park. As she pointed out when she stopped once, very briefly for a rare moment, at home Parklane Hawk would go on the walker so she’s trying to make sure he stays as much to his routine as posssible, and gets as much walking in as he’s used to, and I’d hazard a guess she’s making a pretty good job of it. Since I’ve mentioned the Virgin London Marathon which took place on Sunday, please spare a thought for Claire Lomas, who is still walking the course in her robotic suit, her “wrong trousers”, and if you haven’t done so already, or want to again, it’s definitely not too late to donate to Spinal Research to help her cause.
Kadi Eykamp and Double Rivers Dillon.
The Dressage Arenas were busy this morning with riders wanting to get a work in before the briefing at 10am. At one magical moment I took stock and realised I was practically surrounded by OTTBs, it was pretty special watching Santa’s Playboy, Titanium, Double Rivers Dillon, Calico Joe, (below), Parker and Anthony Patch all working on the flat, and then Becky Holder walked past with her two greys just to put the icing on the cake – wowza!
Pepper Anne was the exception, a german bred, very girly and petite she was showing off some serious moves, flashing across the diagonal in an extended trot to die for!
It definitely seems like the riders stepped up the workload a bit today, there was a bit more pressure being put on the horses in the warm-up arenas. I bumped into Holly Hudspeth again, and again too late, she’d just finished her dressage lesson with David O’Connor, her first in a year due to concentrating on jumping whenever she gets the chance to squeeze in a lesson, usually with Phillip Dutton, but she told me they were both really happy with Last Monarch/Stewie, and hopefully she’ll have another lesson tomorrow, and then David will help her before she goes in the ring, to “keep a lid on everything”.
Becky and her groom hacked her horses, and ever the consummate professional hand-walked them both along the jog lane before Becky gave Comet a brief work on the flat.
Rutherglen, Andrew Hoy’s nine year old, had a pretty intense jump school. He jumped some big fences, a double of verticals and an oxer a fair number of times, and looked very nice over all of them. I kept thinking he’d finished, and then he’d put them up again, they did end up quite a bit higher than in these photos.
James Alliston works Parker on the flat, while out of shot, Yogi watches! I spoke to James before he got on about coming back to Kentucky as a seasoned competitor, “It feels good. Last year I learnt a lot about what it takes, and this year based on that I think I hopefully have Jake a bit fitter, and Parker hopefully the dressage is much improved because I’ve been practicing hard so hopefully we’ll do a better test. They know the lay of the land a little bit now so I’d like to try and improve a bit on last year’s results.” With both of them finishing in the top 20 here last year, and having swept the boards in the three West Coast CIC*** he’s entered on the West Coast since then, it’s a much different scenario for James as he comes to Rolex this year. Instead of the unknown rookie, there’s been British Team buzz about him back home in England and I asked him if that extra pressure made him nervous, “It’s really flattering! I got a text from my best mate in England who doesn’t really know much about horses and apparently my name was in The Telegraph, so that was kind of cool! I think it’s nice, but realistically I still think I’m an outsider, there are people who have done much more than I have in front of me. I’ll just try and do the best I can. ” Some things stay the same though – just as last year, James’ Mum, Dad and brother Mike have flown in to not only groom for him but hopefully to act as lucky mascots, “My dad was at Galway a few weeks ago where I won. There’s something about having them here that helps me out, they keep me relaxcd, I’m very happy they’re here.”
I also managed to talk to James’ brother Mike, groom in every sense of the word, and James’ owner Chuck Moore, (apologies again to Chuck for having a brain fart on his last name!) Chuck and Peggy own Gracelands Equestrian Center where James is based in California, and Chuck is bracing himself in case he has to return to England this summer and drink more warm beer!
Many thanks to everyone who talks to me, and lets me take pictures, and many thanks to you for visiting Eventing Nation, these are exciting times! Spare a thought for the grooms right now at the stables making the horses look fabulous for the trot-up while the riders are out getting a first look at Derek and Mick’s four star course – there’s a ton more to come on Eventing Nation. Go Rolex Kentucky and Go Eventing!
