Payne Tops the lot
At a drama-filled event, Hector Payne scoops pole position in the CIC2* and Heidi Coy nets the junior final trial
A HEALTHY five penalties separated Denbow and Duo
CIC2* winners Hector Payne and Top Biats from runners-up Lucienne Elms and Mistralou.
The result justified the Andoverbased victor’s decision to target this event, after he had had to relinquish victory five weeks earlier in the Floors Castle CIC2* by a frustrating 0.5 of a penalty.
“He’s flashy on the flat,” said Hector, who had secured a leading score of 23.1 in the dressage arena. “Afterwards I felt that I wanted to go back in and do it all again. He’s the kind of horse I need to paint
different colours so that I can ride him over and over,” joked the 26-year-old (see box, right).
Mistralou is the only horse in the Pepperwood Park stables of Lucienne Elms. The Hampshire rider sold the rest of her string to concentrate on building up her online horse selling and networking business, Horse Scout.
“I’ve developed a very unprofessional love for this horse and so I haven’t sold him,” confessed Lucienne, 34, who has been trading horses since the age of 16. She purchased the 16-yearold chestnut thoroughbred by Fourstars Allstar out of racing seven years ago.
“He’s got a fantastic brain and a natural attitude to jumping, but it’s taken a while to establish his lateral work for the dressage,” continued Lucienne. “I don’t like running him in deep going. He’s not very big and he loses heart in it, but the ground at Nunney today was perfect for him.”
TAXING TRACK
HELEN WEST’S taxing 23-fence track, which riders felt was at the top end of two-star, prompted a plethora of jumping faults. There were three holds on the course, the longest of which was the third, after Levi 501, the mount of Alex
Greatorex, had an accident at fence 20, the Picnic Table, which resulted in him being put down.
In all, three horses were eliminated and nine retired.
While there was no particular bogey, in the four intermediate level sections that followed, several fell foul of fence 10, the second of two brush corners.
Sited off a tight turn and on a downward slope, this fence could be tackled on a moving three or four strides.
“I looked at that fence so many times,” said Heidi Coy, who won the junior final trial which ran as open intermediate (OI) section U. “In the end, I went straight on four strides.”
Heidi secured victory aboard her national under-18 champion Carrigsean Tigerseye and finished third with Royal Fury, sandwiching Georgia Bartlett in second with Spano De Nazca.
The Leicestershire-based winner only teamed up with David Ottewell’s 10-year-old gelding last July, and said: “He’s a bit of a lazy horse, so he needs a fair bit of kicking, but he’s like a pony — very compact and easy to turn.”
Her own eight-year-old Royal Fury, by contrast, has been in her stable for three years. “He’s the opposite of Tigerseye. He jumps a fence and gets excited, so I took him slower here or he tends to get a bit too big for his boots.”
BADMINTON FALLER BOUNCES BACK
ALEX WHEWALL claimed the other OI aboard the 12-year-old Chakiris Star, the horse with whom he fell at the Vicarage Vee at Badminton.
“The whole atmosphere got to him. It was gutting as I knew he could have jumped round. Since then, I’ve wanted him to do a few OIs and have a nice time,” said Barbury Event Rider Masters-bound Alex.
Toby Pigott pulled off an intermediate double, winning section P with Royal Diamond II and section Q with Freestyle
R, a horse produced by Tim and Antonia Brown.
“We’ve had help from [Belgian showjumper] Grant Wilson and we’ve not had a pole down all season,” said Toby. “Freestyle is a very straightforward horse and the opposite to Royal Diamond. [The latter] lacks in everything — he doesn’t move that well and he doesn’t jump very high — but he tries so hard.”
Marlborough-based Toby, 26, claimed the Rodney Baker Silver Fox Perpetual Trophy for the best local owner/rider, an accolade he had also netted with this horse in 2015. But just afterwards, Royal Diamond required a two-year layoff after suffering tendon injuries to both front legs at the same time.
“[Vet] Spike Milligan worked hard to get him right,” added Toby. “Every day is a bonus now and today was extra special.”
The dramatic incidents that beset Nunney continued up to the close of the intermediate sections when Mary King and Kings Ginger fell at fence 6, the Table, at around the same time the air ambulance landed to collect another fallen competitor.
On the Saturday, following a fall from her novice ride, The Finding Nemo, Abigail Dean had also been helicoptered off the course and taken to Southmead Hospital. Twenty-four hours later, Abi reported she was on the mend despite a large fracture incurred to the back of her head. Her horse was not injured.