Yona Lloyd, rider and budding course designer, and Sargent Crisp after their 4* dressage test
Yona Lloyd, who will be competing at the highest level of competition in Adelaide for the first time in 18 years, is heeding his wife’s advice to ‘enjoy the journey’
The final stage of Yona’s journey towards the Australian International 3 Day Event included competing his 4* horse Sargent Crisp in the Hickstead competition at Tonimbuk Equestrian Centre on 7th and 8th November where he not only rode but also put together the course
Yona is part of the Friends of Ballarat committee which runs both a CIC horse trials and a very popular start of season Hickstead competition and he brought this concept to Tonimbuk on the weekend. Before he went out to do a run through of his 4* dressage test, we talked to him about competing again in Adelaide, his Hickstead course at Tonimbuk and what he expected to see from the new course by Mike Etherington-Smith in Adelaide
“I’m thinking big, technical, we’re heading into the Olympics type course” says Yona “He’s such an experienced course designer it’s going to be fantastic to jump around one of his courses. I just look at what I see on FEI TV and I imagine all those modern questions that you see at all the big competitions being brought to Australia and I’m just hanging out to get out there and have a crack at it”
Yona Lloyd
Although not all of the riders heading to Adelaide opted to start on the Hickstead course on Sunday it was a great chance for many of them to practise their dressage tests unofficially on the Saturday. Five of the riders that competed in the 2* class are heading to Adelaide and, not surprisingly, so were all seven that were in the 4* class.
There were a few errors of course, some mistakes and fluff ups and then a chance to talk through the test with judge Bev Shandley straight afterwards. This is after all the point of running the event at this time, to iron out all those hiccups and get them out of the way before the big one as, let’s face it, there are not many times you get to perform a 4* test in Australia.
Will Enzinger and Wenlock Aquifer had a second go at one movement but overall this was the test that the judges liked the most, scoring 73% (40.5) with Seumas Marwood’s Wild Oats second on 70.5% (44.25) and Katja Weimann’s BP Flamboyant third on 67.5% (48.75)
Seumas is still managing the after effects of the pneumonia that his mare Wild Oats picked up whilst travelling but is hopeful that she is fit enough for Adelaide
“We won’t know until we set off at Adelaide exactly how fit she is but I believe she is fine – I wouldn’t take her otherwise” says Seumas “But I do know that, having made the decision to run at 4* again, we will run hard. I made a mistake at Goulburn recently by being hesitant – at the last minute I thought she sounded a little wheezy in the Start Box and it played on my mind so I started to ride a little backwards and we ended up being eliminated”
Happy with that! Seumas and Wild Oats
Seumas has worked hard on his dressage and it has really shown in their scores recently with two sub-50 scores at both Canberra and Werribee CIC competitions and he would no doubt be pleased with the unofficial score from Saturday
“Funnily enough I’ve had hardly any dressage lessons recently. But I’m having a brush up session with Gareth (Hughes) next week so I’m really looking forward to that”
It may be that Seumas is just feeling very comfortable with the requirement, having ridden a 4* test several times in a big atmosphere last year (Badminton, Luhmuhlen and Adelaide) but he will need a bit more luck in front of the big heritage stand than he had two years ago when, half way through their test, a mini tornado came whirling through Victoria Park, creating a dust storm and obviously putting the pair a bit off their stride.
Katja’s Weimann’s BP Flamboyant can be a bit of a whirlwind himself. He can do a lot more than he showed in his test on Saturday but again, that was probably not the strategy for the day, however he could pull off something very exciting (hopefully not too exciting)in Adelaide if everything comes together. Katja also gave him a run in the 3* test on the same day, obviously working towards making dressage much less ‘stressage’ for him by repetition, while BP Escapade, who is headed to Adelaide to defend the Exhibition Eventing Equestrian Grand Final title that Katja won on BP Cosmopolitan last year at Equitana, ran through the 2* dressage test for fifth place
Amanda Ross and Dicavalli Diesel
The 2* test however was well and truly dominated by Amanda Ross and her relatively new ride Dicavalli Diesel who scored 78%. If Amanda gets a penalty score of 33 from the judges in Adelaide, I think she would be delighted but she was pretty happy even as she warmed up and circled the arena at Tonimbuk
“I’ve just had a lesson with Heath (Ryan) and we really got him through the back for the first time since I’ve had him and I managed to get that here too”
Dicavalli Diesel is compact but has the elevation and swing of a much bigger horse. They will certainly be ones to watch next week but Amanda, who was fourth in the CCI4* in 2009 on Koyuna Tora Bora, is being cautious about putting too much pressure on herself
“It’s really nice that people are saying ‘Oh his dressage is great, he’s really bold, you could win it’ but my aim is to get to the last day, survive the competition, end up on the lowest score that I can and, if that wins it, that’s fantastic. But I don’t want to end up hammering around a corner and slipping on the cross country or doing something stupid like have a run-out ... I’m very aware that this is stepping stone to 4*”
That full interview with Amanda coming soon .........
Tons of talent but just training today - Andrew Cooper and Toronto
As Amanda finished her test, Andrew Cooper entered the arena joking “Not fair that I have to follow that!” Toronto is a seriously nice horse too but it wasn’t their day and Andrew used it as a training session, throwing away marks to nail the halts and give Toronto a bit of a lesson, but his other Adelaide bound 2* horse Fairbanks Cappucino was in second place on 68.75% and 18 year old Molly Barry, who will be a first timer to Adelaide, scored 67.5% on La Muso for fourth place
More about Molly and La Muso also coming up soon .............
Molly Barry and La Muso
