A Monumental May

It’s been a crazy month, we are the busiest we have ever been, and that is saying something! To give you some context here is a screenshot from the month of May – all the words in bold mean we were off-site which means we were only at home x4 days out of the past 32. It’s outrageous, and at the same time I am so proud of our team and what we have been able to pull off in those 32 days.  

Badminton

Rewind just a few short weeks – Badminton. The best and worst of times. A last-minute withdrawal from Sooty after needing a break following his last gallop, and so much promise with a stunning dressage test from Charlie only to be thwarted without the control that we needed to tackle cross country on the day!

It was however the most magical feeling being there – living a dream that we had dared to dream for so long. It was fantastic to have Pip and Sharon visiting all the way from NZ, and whilst it didn’t go our way, we certainly appreciated sharing that journey with those from near and far.  

We walked away understandably disappointed, ready to make plans anew.

Bicton

I really want to go to Aachen this year, with the World Games being held there next year it is an obvious advantage to get competition experience at the same venue.

I knew that if Aachen selection was going to be a possibility I would have to prove that I not only had control following Badminton - I needed to get a result. And so, we did a last-minute entry for Bicton CCI4*S.

Malibu and Luca were already entered for the CCI3*L, and both performed really well, jumping double clear with Luca in the money in 9th. A pretty impressive improvement in Luca’s dressage – going from a previous FEI PB of 33.3 at 3* level to a 28.3 at Bicton. Proving that I haven’t lost my eye just yet ;)

But Charlie really took the cake, a 4* PB for both of us of 23.9 put him in 2nd in a really quality field of horses with only London 52 ahead of us.

He jumped double clear and fast, adding 4 time to finish on 27.9 locking in 2nd.  It was the biggest result of our career, earning us an HPR of 99.

Royal Jump

The last week of May each year we are normally at Millstreet which is usually a very happy hunting ground for us. However, this year we opted to head to Royal Jump because of the large prize pool on offer – it is uncommon to have good prize money at this level and I feel that any venue willing to invest in that aspect deserves to be supported with our entries. So, we headed off to France instead of Ireland, with x3 entered for the 4*L, one for the 4*S, and Cleo in the 3*S with Kaitlyn.

We arrived to a royal welcome – Hervé (the owner and organiser of Royal Jump) personally greeted us and within 5 minutes had invited us to lunch. We feasted on homemade spaghetti and lemon meringue pie while he proceeded to outline the social calendar for the week;

Tuesday – Recovery day

Wednesday – Welcome cocktails followed by “family karaoke night”

Thursday – Choir followed by DJ night

Friday – Casino night followed by “open karaoke night”

Saturday – Fashion show followed by a famous French singer followed by DJ night

And boy was it entertaining! Kaitlyn and I treated everyone to a rendition of “Love Story” by Taylor Swift at the karaoke on Wednesday, no one was safe as Hervé plucked people from the crowd to sing.

I completed all my dressage on Thursday. I was particularly happy with a beautiful harmonious test from Quantas. A PB of 26.9 and into 3rd place. Sooty was his usual excellent self and both Bertie and Darcy produced some nice work for where they are at.

A day off for me and a tidy test from Kaitlyn in the Friday heat soon meant that cross country day arrived in the blink of an eye!

First we show jumped Sooty who did a beautiful round to slot him into 3rd overnight.

Bertie was first out on xc and really showed us all why he’s earnt a spot on our A team. He posted the only clear and under time, whizzing around with an uncanny ease.

It was a big team effort to get through x3 4*L runs – a full half an hour solid of cross country riding in the space of about 2hrs.

• We had Kaitlyn running the ship

• Marts and Neil as “directors of videography”, supported by Kate and Rachel

• Annabelle and Jules manning the cool down

• Alex getting the next horse ready each time

• And Brayden as chief nutritionist and athlete support

It sure was hot… I sat rather unglamorously with an ice pack on my head trying to get my core temperature down between rides to prepare for the next one.

Quantas was second out and was so enjoyable. He was super rideable and ate up each question finishing just a single (!?) second over the optimum time. Darling Darcy was last to go from our three, pulling out a lovey round galloping home strongly and really proving that she is a 4*L horse.

The final day started with Sooty’s cross country – he blitzed around with just 0.8 time faults to take 2nd place in the CCI4*S!

We had x3 to show jump in a class of 12, that doesn’t leave us much time to warm up! It was full noise, Darcy was first off and true to her record she jumped her little heart out for a clear round. Bertie followed suit that that was two ticks in the box and it was down to Quantas. We finished our warmup in about 3 minutes flat and headed down. I hadn’t seen anyone else jump as the warmup was out of sight.

I tossed up whether or not I wanted to know how Tim had jumped. In the end I decided to ask Kaitlyn to check because I figured that if I was at WEG or the Olympics I would likely know so I thought it would be good to replicate that situation.

She looked at her phone, looked up at me, looked at her phone, pressed refresh, and said – “Sam, you’ve already won!”

At this point that didn’t make any sense at all, and to be honest I was annoyed at her for telling me useless information that I didn’t understand, so I said “what do you mean!?”

“Bertie has already won it – everyone else had fences down!”

It was a shock to say the least, I put it all aside to focus on the job ahead of me, Quantas jumped a lovely round, there was one line that was 7 or 8 strides, I did 7 and in hindsight I think the 8 would have been better as we got there just a little quick for one fence down (which I’m irritated about don’t worry haha). Nevertheless it was good enough for the win and Quantas was officially crowned the King of Royal Jump!

 As I walked out of the ring I found out that not only was Bertie in 2nd but Darcy had finished 3rd – Holy Heka we took the entire podium!  

Big celebrations, showered with congratulations, and so many prizes! We went home with over 17,000 euros to split with our owners - Safe to say that chasing the prize money had paid off, and that this event is going to be a target for years to come! We can’t wait to be back next year and we are already planning what horses we might take.  

Everyone pitched in for the pack up which was a big help.

We got home at 5.30am, I was on a horse by 5.45am, finished riding x5, the girls turned the lorry around so that we could then drop it off to Tom from Haynes Horseboxes for some little fix-its before we head to Luhmuhlen!

Home by midday, it’s fair to say we all had a long siesta Monday afternoon!

Bizarrely this week Brayden and I are heading off on a short holiday – I can’t remember the last time we did that. We are going to Morrocco with our good friends Megan and Toby. I’m looking forward to sitting on a camel, soaking up another culture and eating some delicious food! It's Wednesday morning and we are currently sitting in the airport (ok jokes it's now Thursday morning I didn't have enough time to get this finished yesterday), and we fly back on Saturday night just in time to head to West Wilts for another competition on Sunday before leaving Monday for Luhmuhlen with Sooty!

Owner Updates

Amongst all of this business we have had some exciting ownership developments;

Joining the Lucas Stone partnership we had two smart owners who snuck in just before the inevitable price increase of Bicton! A big welcome to Fiona Edwards and David Taylor (whose wife Sally already owns Cleo with us) who have joined in the fun with Luca!

We finally convinced Kate to make a syndicate with Kitty (Chakita) who is actually Darcy’s daughter! Brayden and I have partnered with Kate and Neil Robertson, and we are all very excited about this 7yr who might be lacking a bit of mileage but there is certainly no lack of talent!

Finally, having officially completed absolutely smashed their first CCI4*L runs, we can officially offer the final 12.5% of both Quantas and Darcy to the market.

They need no introduction, and both horses will aim for Championship teams in the future. This final 12.5% represents an opportunity to jump into ownership right at the top end with minimal ongoing running costs - get in touch if that sounds like a bit of you.

Reflecting on a great couple of weeks we are locking in our learnings, what to keep the same, and the 1% improvements to make for next time.

Lets hope that repeating our processes will produce more weeks like the ones we’ve just had.

P.S. We need to board our plane but I also forgot to add that we also had wins at Aston Le Walls with Luca and at Belsay in the Advanced with Quantas this month.

It’s been a Monumental May :)