Eventing Upton House, Haras du Jardy, Eridge and highlights
Sharon Hunt takes a section on a horse who could bring her back to the big time, while Oliver Townend scores a double victory
“I HAVEN’T had a horse since Tankers Town as consistent as this one,” said Sharon Hunt after winning intermediate section F on her family’s Veyga.
Comparing the 12-year-old by Cevin Z to her Luhmühlen CCI4* winner and British team partner is high praise indeed, but Sharon thinks Veyga is a special one.
“He has got quite low mileage, despite his age — he breezed round his first advanced at Chatsworth double clear recently,” she said. “He’s now really established at everything; he’s diligent, very careful and always tries for you. I can really trust him.”
Sharon plans to take him to Blenheim for the CCI3*, via the CIC3* at Hartpury.
The pair led from the start in their section with a dressage of 25.2 and a clear round showjumping. Six cross-country time-faults left them 1.9 penalties in front of Mary Edmundson and DG Maradona.
Both jumping phases were influential — there were cricket scores and even eliminations in the showjumping, which Sharon described as “big, square and quite a long track”.
The cross-country course itself, designed by Charles Etherington- Smith, was fairly straightforward, but it twisted tightly round the early flat section and then ran up and down Upton’s banks, and just two riders in the intermediate classes made the time.
One of those was Shropshirebased Frenchman Arthur Duffort, who was three-quarters of the way down section C after dressage with a mark of 35.5 on Gredington Mailthyme. However, they added nothing more to that score and took the class from Piggy French and Cooley Monsoon.
It was the Jaguar Mail seven-year-old’s first attempt at intermediate.
“He doesn’t like dressage too much, but he did a correct test, and he loves the jumping,” said Arthur.
“I heard on my way to the cross-country start that no one had made the time, so I thought I would give it a go, and he was about 10 seconds under it. He loves jumping at speed — if you don’t go fast, he can hang in the air a bit.”
Gredington Mailthyme was bred by owner Kate Churton out of the intermediate Queen’s Soldier mare Waterbeck Thyme and came to Arthur less than a year ago.
“I thought he might be too little to jump big fences — he’s under 16hh — but he’s scopey and very nice to ride,” Arthur said.
TOWNEND’S DOUBLE
OLIVER TOWNEND picked up a brace of wins — open intermediate (OI) section D on Angela Hislop, Karyn Shuter and Val Ryan’s Ballaghmor Class, for whom this was a prep run for the Nations Cup at Aachen, and intermediate section A on Menlo Park.
“Ballaghmor Class is probably as good a horse as I’ve had,” said Oliver. “I’ve had him since he was young — he took a long time to back as he is very sharp, but it feels like I can do anything with him.”
The grey Courage II 10-yearold added 1.6 time-faults to his dressage of 29.6 to hold off Matt Heath and Sportsfield Lord
Livesey, who were the only other pair of the day to make the time across country.
This is a lucky event for Matt and Hazel Livesey’s eightyear-old — they won their first intermediate here in 2016.
Menlo Park continued his excellent season under Oliver, with victory on his debut at intermediate level to add to his CCI* success at Tattersalls and his CIC* win at Floors.
The seven-year-old son of Eurocommerce Berlin breezed round the jumping phases and just picked up two cross-country time-faults to add to his 26.4 dressage. He finished a point ahead of Katie Barber and
Don Mecco.
“He found the step up easy,” said Oliver. “He was impressive in the showjumping and better for a bigger fence, and he coped with the hills on the cross-country very comfortably. He should be a real contender for Le Lion in the autumn.”
Mark Todd took the other OI section on his own, Di Brunsden and Peter Cattell’s OBOS Columbus ahead of Austin O’Connor (Billy Black Cat).
“He’s a good horse who’s had the odd blip — he’s taken time to grow up, and he is so big-moving that he found it difficult to balance in the dressage, but he’s got that nailed now and his focus has improved,” said Mark. “I had a lovely ride on him today. He’ll definitely go four-star, but sadly he’s for sale.”
‘He’s diligent, very careful and always tries for you.
I can really trust him’
SHARON HUNT ON INTERMEDIATE WINNER VEYGA
Mark, who was making his first trip to Upton for many years, echoed the other riders when he described the conditions underfoot as “perfect”. Although a night of rain helped, the organisers had worked very hard on the ground preceding that, agri-vating and watering extensively.
“I think all British event organisers should come to Upton and see what they have been able to do,” said Oliver.
H&H