The Olympic Warm-up Continues at Salperton
Report and photos by Dominic Sancto
With just 5 weeks to go until the main event at Greenwich, riders of all nations are out giving their selected, or in some cases selection hopefuls, warm-up runs for the main event. Salperton Horse Trials, set in the picturesque chocolate box hills of the Cotswolds, played host to some of those on their road to London 2012.
Saturday's OI & AI classes were littered with horses and riders that had been selected or were serious contenders for selection, providing some hotly contested sections. Australia had a strong presence here and managed to win two of the sections. One of the names on everybody's lips at the moment, Andrew Hoy, who is nominated to the Aussie team for London with Rutherglen, won Advanced Intermediate Section G with Cheeky Calimbo, another striking and athletic horse, he is having much success with (pictured above).
The courses at Salperton were designed this year by Mike Etherington-Smith, and built by the same David Evans crew who have built Blenheim for the last few years. Plenty of rain earlier in the week made to going a little softer and energy sapping that you first thought and, whilst a few did manage to make the time, plenty of others chose to have a gentle run, including Chris Burton on Holstein Park Leilani (pictured above) who racked up 24 time penalties, but looked superb all the way round.
The Kiwis were also out en mass at Salperton with Mark Todd giving both of his Olympic contenders a run (Grass Valley & NZB Campino), plus Jock Paget with Clifton Lush & Clifton Promise, all having gentle warm-up runs. As ever though, Andrew Nicholson was not hanging around, running 5 horses competitively in both the OI & AI, and an absolute joy to watch cross country. His best result of the day was 2nd on Sirio (pictured above)
Paul Tapner (pictured above), although sadly not selected for London, continues to demonstrate his elite list status with many of his up and coming horses, and won Intermediate section A, on Indian Mill, who has won 4 of his 6 starts this season. It was also very interesting to watch Paul deal with a stop on Carlito III, at a "drop & skinny" combination where plenty of others were having trouble. He calmly showed the horse the skinny obstacle, represented and popped over it - a very educational run. A refreshing contrast to someone else I watched later on course who ran downhill to the water on the horse's forehand and then beat the horse repeatedly after it refused - idiot!
As the London Games draw nearer, the number of riders destined for the Olympics that can be spotted at these events increases dramatically each week and with the arrival of the entire US Team shortlist next week's Barbury Horse Trials will be a climatic event. Australian's will be particularly interested to see how Aussie turned Yank, Phillip Dutton, gets on with Mystery Whisper, a horse he acquired from Heath Ryan just before the Olympic deadline for change of ownership.
Sammi Mcleod takes a huge leap into the water on Winnetou M
Bill Levett wearing his trademark racing googles riding Alexander NJ
You can read more of Dominic's reports at TalkingHorse.net
