Fletcher siblings triumph
Olli Fletcher declares it his best season ever, while his brother, Will, also has success
OLLI FLETCHER has blitzed the final throes of his summer season, adding victory here in the Oxfordshire area trial to a win in the International Stairway at Newbury just four days earlier.
This time it was his junior European medallist, Lady Harris and Lady Kirkham’s Hello Disckoboy DN, who took the spoils, topping a seven-strong jump-off with the fastest of two double clears.
“One hundred percent I thought last year was the best season ever — I didn’t think I’d better it, but I’ve done so by a long way,” said 15-year-old Olli. “The hope is always to improve, but next year I don’t think I could!”
Winds were so strong during the day that both the crowd and the stallholders had decided to make an exit by the time the feature class hit the main ring.
Despite wings being staked to the ground, coursebuilder Phil Ashworth and his crew were kept busy restoring fences flattened by sharp gusts. Considering the conditions, the course jumped well, with seven making it through to the deciding round.
Kirsty Hardstaff was the first to produce a clean sheet with her quirky but scopey 14-year-old, Quid, but her steady target time left ample room for challenge. A strong one came from Helen Tredwell — who had two rides
through — when she crossed the line nine seconds faster with Funnycan but added an unfortunate four faults at the last.
Next in, Olli skipped round with the 10-year-old grey to produce the only other clear, more than seven seconds up on the clock. They were followed by Mennell Watson and his stallion Whisper In The Wind, who laid down the fastest jump-off performance but clipped the penultimate oxer to settle for third.
“I’d gone at the start of the first round so I didn’t get the worst of the wind, but it didn’t seem to bother him — the only thing that changed for me was that I couldn’t hear Mum [Tina] shouting at me in the collecting ring!” Olli said.
“I was quite early to go in the jump-off and it was a galloping track. I knew with Mennell, Helen and Maisie [Drea] after me I had to be quick, so I put the marker down. I thought Mennell would have me but I had a bit of luck on the day.”
Olli is now planning to give both Hello Disckoboy DN and his Royal County of Berkshire winner, Temple Rebus, a break and will take Caicos to Olympia and Liverpool before heading out to Vilamoura at the start of next year.
Both the Fletcher brothers had been on fine form at Newbury, with Will taking a win in the area trial, and he didn’t leave Thame empty-handed either, claiming the 1.35m open A4 with Di Wilson’s mare Tiger Bright.
“We’re lucky to have an amazing string between us at the moment — we’ve got horses to jump the top stuff on, horses to win on as well as promising young ones,” Olli added.
AWKWARD TURNBACK PROVES CRITICAL
THIRTY combinations came forward to contest the two-phase B&Cs, with an awkward but time-saving turnback inside the water proving critical in the top placings.
The win went to James Fisher and his eye-catching eight-yearold Toulon mare, Fancypina.
“The turn wouldn’t have suited all horses, but I knew she wouldn’t mind and we wouldn’t have won without doing it,” said James, who has owned the dark bay since she was a three-year-old.
The mare is from a dam line closely related to Ocolado, who James rode before selling to
Ellen Whitaker.
“This one is a bit of a pet really — she was quite late developing, so we’ve given her time in that respect and I thought she felt very sure-footed today,” he said.
“Everything we have now we produce to sell, so we try not to travel more than an hour-and-aquarter to shows these days. I’ve been coming to [the original] Thame show since I was a child and it’s one of the best rings on the county circuit — you always know it’s going to be watered and jump well.”