10 mei 2016
Catton Spring Horse Driving Trials 2016
The first outdoor event of the season was greeted by glorious sunshine for most of the weekend but the organisers must have thanked their lucky stars when the heavens opened just after the last four in hand competitor finished the marathon on Saturday!
It’s fair to say that the organisers did a grand job on preparing the ground as two weeks before Catton, bales of hay had been used to clear the standing water off the dressage arena to give it chance to dry out.
Approximately 80 competitors competed at this well respected venue and it was great to see a good turnout of juniors competing at this national setting.
As the first event of the season, the course was marked out sympathetically with only 7 out of the normal 8 obstacles on the course. The exclusion of the hill obstacle was a relief to some!
Dressage day ran smoothly and saw some notable performances including that of James Broome who took two sets of pairs and competed with Zwen D and Walter. This was Zwen D’s first dressage competition in a pair and giving him a win in the dressage phase of the Advanced Horse Pairs class. James also produced one of the best tests of the day with his second pair (competing Hors Concours) with Bonaire and Douglas. This was the first time out for the 7 year old gelding, Douglas.
James commented that he wanted to try this combination together and competed in the dressage and cones as he felt Douglas needs a few more miles on the clock before he takes him around a marathon course. Douglas put in such a great performance, he looked like a grand prix dressage horse.
Only 9 marks separated the entire Horse Four in Hand class after the dressage phase. As this was a selection event for the class, it made for a very eventful marathon. Dick Lane came out on top after driving around Barry Hunter’s obstacles smoothly and quickly. However, this meant that Dick had now gone into the lead of the class, but by less than one point over Pippa Bassett.
Saturday’s marathon was found to be testing and tricky by many drivers across all the classes. The situation of the ten minute halt so close to the obstacles proved to be too exciting for many horses who found it hard to relax in the area. There were also a number of retirements during this phase.
Barry Hunter built a charismatically clever cones course on the Sunday which gave all drivers a fair challenge. Without doubt, in the most dramatic climax to their first selection event, Pippa drove the cones immediately before Dick collecting just 11.88 penalties. This meant that Dick had to accrue less than 12.4 penalties in his round. He stood up to the pressure and put in a fantastic performance, although many of his supporters were holding their breath for his entire round, and ended his cones round with a score of 11.8. For those not familiar with National scoring, this meant if he had taken just 1.5 seconds longer, the victory would have gone to Pippa.
