17 October 2010 - 2nd Taupo CIC 3*

 

I had a great weekend at Taupo for the first CIC event of the season.

I had Playtime NZPH in the pre novice, Farbio in the intermediate, Push Play in the advanced and Henton Attorney General in the CIC 3*.

Playtime NZPH did his trademark lovely test for 3rd place on 29.1. He had an unfortunate rail showjumping and felt like a pro xc for a steady clear round. I am really excited for his future and am looking forward to stepping him up to novice at his next event.

Farbio in his first intermediate wowed the judges to win the dressage by over 10% on 29.0! He had an unlucky showjump round where he got distracted down the first line an oxer five strides to a one stride double of verticals and had the three fences down. He finished the round confidently and was literally jumping the height of the stands so I will put the rails down to greenness not a lack of scope! He felt brilliant xc at this level and jumped a lovely clear round to finish 5th in his class.

Push Play stepped up this weekend to advanced and did a nice test to win on 35.5 he then had an uncharacteristic 5 rails down. This was really disapointing as he has jumped clear all this year, I put it down to the ground as he jumped the first two fences brilliantly and then just lost a little confidence and wasn't pushing strongly off the ground. I decided to still take him steadily around the xc for the experience and he was AMAZING jumping straight through everywhere and gave me lots to look forward to for the future! He finished 3rd overall.

Henton Attorney General was next and we had a few fresh moments in the test but overall the quality is much better so he still scored 46.2 to be 2nd after dressage in the CIC 3* class. He jumped one of only two clear rounds in the class, but after my earlier SJ rounds I took my time and got 11 time faults! Annoying. I was lying 4th before xc and made the decision to go for it and try make the time and go for the win as it was looking achievable. Unfortunately I was pipped at the post as although we had an awesome round inside the time, Emily Butcher on her four star partner Southern Ben also ran inside time and we finished 2nd