A challenging trip out to Lignieres for the team would be a bit of an understatement! Kerryn and her team got stuck at the customs in Calais for some 9 hours after a problem with one of the carnets as one of the pen pushers came across an issue and went all French on them. Its one of the maddest things about the Brexit farce that what is designed to ensure the health and safety of horses in transit actually takes it back some 30 years to when we hard hard borders all across Europe and it was not uncommon to be stuck at them for hours or even a day or two. We used to chuck 200 cigarettes out at the border guards back in the day as sweetners but now more than half of them don’t smoke so that’s no help!
Eventually Kez managed to overcome the bureaucracy and set onwards for Lignieres only for a tyre to blow on the trailer that the Maxi was towing. By this time getting to Lignieres was off the cards on Tuesday so they got towed, stabled near Paris and waited for a new tyre to become available.
Tim, Jonelle and Cosby, en route by car from Little Downham, gave up trying to get to Lignieres and holed up in a hotel in Versaille and checked out the venue for the Olympics next year!
They did all get to the venue later on Wednesday and the 4S dressage for Kankan was moved to Thursday which was typically kind of the OC at the event…they really do bend over backwards to help out at Lignieres.
The 3Long horses didn’t jog until Thursday so that was very helpful! Dromgurrihy Gold (Dara) posted an 31.7 for 12th spot in a competitive class and Tim was delighted with him and said that he really couldn’t have gone any better for his age and stage. Priorspark Royal Riff-Raff ((Raffi) is on his first international event trip and, having been on the Sunshine Tour this spring, must think that the journey time is totally normal for leaving the UK. It certainly didn’t bother him and he posted a 33 .3 for midfield in a huge class and will only improve from the experience. Tim was happy with his work and his attitude and thought he tried really hard to do the best he could with the education he has had so far.
Jonelle had a dressage at 11 am on Thursday with Fernhill Kankan which, as she said, came around a little quicker than the original planning! She said that she” didn’t have her quite as ‘through’ as she did at Blenheim and not quite the same quality of work and then when you add in 2 late changes you end up on a 33.9″. It’s a fair comment and since the flying changes are very much a winter project its no surprise that Kankan cant pull them off in the ring yet.
Full Monty de Lacense (FM) has had a bit of a frustrating year and is a bit late to the 3L party. He started out with Kankan but got left behind with a couple of niggling setbacks but he looks stunning now and is raring to go! He’s a confident fella when he is on form and Jonelle mentioned that he strode out of the test like he had nailed it which is no bad thing but in reality a few moments like some hollowing, a delayed walk /canter strike off, a halt where he didn’t step up all add up to little mistakes which see you on a 34.7.
Jumping from now on and Jonelle said the track looks good and if the crew all have good jumping phases they will be super happy with them.
Results and start times are buried in this link: yesterday it was only showing 2022 but it was up to speed today.