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Isabel English and Grand Andi have the first clear show jumping round in the CCI2* and win the Young Rider Championship
Clear show jumping rounds were few and far between in the final phase of the Australian International 3 Day Event CCI2* in Adelaide this morning. It was not until the young rider Isabel English on Grand Andi jumped a clear round under time that the crowd gathered around the main ATCO arena could get excited and the celebration music was heard. This double clear round, one of only five out of the final 42 competitors, helped move Isabel up to 13th place and also saw her complete the event as the winning Young Rider of 2014
The next clear round came from Victorian rider Simon Tainsh riding the nine year old bay warmblood by Just de Pomme. The Olympic winning show jumping lines certainly came to the fore here and the young mare looked totally at ease in the big arena to finish in eighth place on her dressage score of 59.80. Shortly afterwards Western Australia showed what they had been showing all weekend, namely that they are good at this eventing lark, with two of their riders coming up with very good clear rounds; Cindy Lyall and GI Joe obviously didn’t feel the weight of a whole support crew riding along with them as they jumped each fence and Tegan Cook showed how her horse got his name. We can finally confirm that Better On Sunday is indeed called that is because they wanted him to live up to his name as an eventer. Today he did just that to finish in fourth place.
Nina Clarke and LP Boudin
Nina Clarke has had a great weekend with her ‘black pudding’ LP Boudin finishing in seventh place, the best of the Victorian riders in this class and we caught up with her for a chat
Nina Clarke
Wendy Schaeffer and Sun Showers had an uncharacteristic fence down at Fence 5 which seemed to be the bogey fence for quite a few horses and Megan Jones also incurred four faults riding Kirby Park Invader. Megan’s other horse Kirby Park Impress, who was lying second after the cross country, was not accepted at this morning’s horse inspection with the chestnut mare feeling a little sore. It appears that she got a scratch on the fetlock from a brush fence on cross country but at seven years of age there is no doubt we’ll be seeing more of her. The third placed Kirsty Douglas and Cushavon Crackerjack then piled on the pressure by jumping a very impressive clear round – this is another horse with serious jumping bloodlines and recently Kirsty has been helped by the Queensland based World Cup show jumper Michelle Lang.
CCI2* champions Kirsty and Crackerjack
“He tried his heart out for me” says Kirsty about the lovely grey horse who very nearly lost an eye earlier this year and has subsequently missed a lot of competitions “He really didn’t want to touch anything”. Indeed he didn’t
Christine Bates had only 3.8 penalties in hand and Kung Fu Panda looked as if he was not going to need them but Fence 9 came down and, agonisingly, the very last also fell. Kirsty and Cushavon Crackerjack had clinched the Australian International 3 Day Event CCI2* win on a score of 51.30 with Christine in second place on 55.50 and Megan in third on 55.70.
They led from the beginning but Christine and Kung Fu Panda moved down to second place on the final day
With a short break enabling the VIP guests to indulge in South Australian wines and gourmet treats by the Hilton chefs, some of the other VIPs entertained the crowd. Andrew Hoy talked them through the CCI4* course designed by John Vallance, explaining the ins and outs (or ups and downs) of the track
“A show jumping course designer has a big influence on the final results and the course should be built to challenge the riders and test the horses. I really believe that John Vallance has done that here today” said Andrew.
No doubt many of the riders felt the same after they had jumped with a few recording some double figure tallies. Poor Madison Simpson had a horror round resulting in 48 jumping penalties and seven time faults and even much more experienced combinations such as Seumas Marwood and Wild Oats, who have had considerable success in pure show jumping, had 24 jumping penalties. Katja Weimann showed how it should be done, giving BP Cosmopolitan a perfect ride for the first clear round which eventually moved her up into fourth place. Isabel English couldn’t replicate her clear round from the earlier CCI2* class and had three down plus six time penalties and Libby Lowery dropped from third to fifth with 16 jumping penalties.
Soigne Jackson and Gold (above) had two rails down but they finished on the podium in third place with Soigne reflecting on what she could have done better during the weekend
Megan Jones (above) had a look of pure determination on her face as she rode into the arena on Kirby Park Allofasudden. No stranger to pressure situations, Megan rode the first clear round since Katja’s which really piled the pressure on the 22 year old Jess Manson
Jess had 6.1 penalties in hand but the 22 year old and the Australian Stock Horse Legal Star(above) that she has had since he was three years old did not need them. An impressively calm and well judged round from the young rider sealed her first ever CCI4* win here in Adelaide although it was taking a while to sink in
And the reason why Soigne had champagne on her helmet? Adelaide's answer to Formula One Racing of course - the shaking of the bottle on the podium ...........
