Jumping for joy

Well Friday thankfully turned out to be a truly lovely bright and sunny affair after the blusters of the previous couple of days when downpours looked imminent.

Thursday had witnessed an absolute hive of activity as the various parts to Twixstead were prepared, most especially the cross-country course, with flags being erected at each and every fence with course designer Anki Holmstrom.

The event was threefold – show jumping, dressage and cross-country – and riders had to complete in all three disciplines, moving many swiftly out of their comfort zone.
 
Show Jumping was first on the list, with Pam Kamal quickly getting into her stride.

This was a Clear Round Class, if you had a refusal or a knock down these were added up as your penalty points – two refusals meant elimination having incurred the maximum 100 penalty points!

Moving on from the show jumping to the dressage, class A, had to perform a Preliminary dressage test and class B had to undertake a Novice dressage test.

Then the day moved onto the cross-country course. There were no penalties for refusals, though there was a catch Ö well, there had to be!

Class A competitors were allowed to jump whichever part of the obstacle they chose, however many obstacles were designed to be higher, more complicated and challenging at a certain end, e.g. at the half moon fence there were two identical half-moons, it just happened that one was more than half the height of the other! 
 
Class B contenders had to jump the more difficult part of the fence and if they jumped the wrong fence it resulted in a 100 point penalty. Another 100 point penalty was suffered if you didn’t jump the fence at all.

It was imperative to get over those fences, whatever the challenge.

Before the cross-country could start, the fence judges were issued with their flags and their score sheets, every jump had to be monitored to ensure it was actually jumped and in the correct section. 

The timers had stopwatches at the ready, and a monitor moved into position to oversee the whole of the aptly-named jungle section of the cross-country course.

There was a huge air of anticipation, let’s not forget that these horses and ponies have not been out of the confines and security of their own stables and paddocks for nearly two years now.

Whilst a few of the horses were familiar with the jungle as their grazing ground it was still a different matter to be ridden round it and have to negotiate fences.

For many, this was totally new territory although the course had been built on Twin Palms land and was a totally safe environment for both horse and rider – well, unless you fell off, of course! A fully-qualified nurse was also on standby to assist the team of first aiders.

The course started in the rear of the stable from the shaded area paddocks. The fences were also named Ö the first was the Wicked Washstand – that would be due to the pots of flowers that surrounded it just to put the horses off.

It led to the Green Grinch (small green bench) laid between barrels on the way out, up and over the hill to the jungle section and the Twixstead triple, three intimidating logs with one stride between them.

Next up was the Spitting Cobra – two black snake like plastic logs placed in a ditch – then round the corner to Tango Turn, a huge orange pipe jump.

A very scary half-moon fence followed, it was surrounded by logs and bushes and led onto another triple set of obstacles.

This led to the final fence in the jungle section, the Brush Home, then back up the hill and out to the jumping paddock, to find the barrel bank, another of Anki’s trick fences only erected the night before so no-one could get a sneak practice jump, a tree! Yes, a tree Ö branches, the whole nine yards Öthe Trickstead tree!
 
Once over the tree it was onto the home-straight although a tyrannical tyre fence had still to be tackled followed by a final formidable wooden brush fence entitled the Swedish barricade!

Then it was back over the Wicked Washstand to the finish line.
 
The whole cross country-course had to be completed in an optimum timeÖ for class A it was four minutes and for class B it was three minutes. There were penalty points for being too slow, as well as being too fast!

There was a brilliant turnout for this event, with a huge age/experience range of riders across the two classes.

Unfortunately Maggie Andersson who had been so very much looking forward to the day and practising like a demon had to be called out of the country urgently and she missed it. Luckily Kat Rushton made sure Maggie’s horse Banjo enjoyed the day, as she rode both Banjo and Duke for the event.
 
Even the more experienced riders had a dose of nerves pre-cross-country, but on their return, exhilarated, everyone wanted to immediately go again.

There were, of course, the coveted trophies at the end to be won. Riders such as Laya Abdul Jawad and Melinda Cranage were new to competing so this was certainly an experience for them, and to see the smiles on the faces of the younger riders such as Paula Canseco and Luna Dreyer were reward enough.
 
For this show it was the dressage that sorted everyone into their placings. The whole event was never a sure win for anyone. 

Nina Owen with her charge Otto didn’t do so well in the show jumping but did an outstanding dressage test and their cross-country was also excellent. Although Nina did claim some penalty points for timing, the pair won overall.

Nina rounded off her winning streak of the day by claiming the Best Turned Out title for the second time this season.

Class A, saw some superb riding from all its competitors, with Virginie Dreyer astride Athos coming in close on Nina’s hooves. Athos who was an Australian one-day eventer, thought all his oats had come at once when he was faced with the cross-country, he loved each and every minute of it.
 
Class B was very close for the competitors, with only fractional marks between the placings, it was Natasha Kino who swept in from UAE to claim victory astride the multi-talented Bingo.

The pair excelled at everything from a faultless clear round in the show jumping to a seamless, fluid and delightful dressage.

There was a dead heat for the coveted first place and the winner was decided by their dressage score, Natasha won. 
Runner-up for the day was Helen Blake (hhmm, that’s me) with Loki, who after a bit of a bumpy start earlier that morning behaved impeccably, certainly enjoying his cross-country, even when we took out a flag. I’m sure that would have incurred penalty points somewhere in the world!

Third position was taken by Kat Rushton riding the first of her two mounts of the day, Duke. They excelled in the dressage, but gained faults in the show jumping.

Our current league leader Idrak Alaquel riding Ecco claimed fourth position. They were only just beaten in the all-important dressage.

Special thanks has to go this week to the wonderful team of volunteers who came together to organise and assist with this event. A show of this size takes months of planning and could not run as smoothly as it did without their support.
 
A big thank you must go to Anki, as course builder and designer, and to her team headed by Yvonne Addison and Sharon Henry for all their support with making flags, numbers, organising score sheets and much, much more.

Praise also goes for the excellent job the judges did with the dressage, thanks to Susie Pope, and Carina Abdulrahman, and a very special thank you has to go to a super show jumping and cross-country judge, who was also the most amazing commentator/compere for the day’s events, Pam Kamal.

Watch out for the next Twixstead event on Friday, March 16. It will be much harder, the organisers say.

Send your equine news to helen2blake@hotmail.com

Twin Palms Riding Centre
Twixstead results

Class A: Show Jumping 50cms/Preliminary A dressage / Cross Country A course.
1 Nina Owen / Otto; 2 Virginie Dreyer / Athos; 3 Mariella Forward / Dollar; 4 Debbie Kamal / Aztec; 5 Melinda Cranage / Eid; 6 Lydia Martin / Woody

Class B: Show Jumping 80cms/Novice dressage / Cross Country B course.

1 Natasha Kino / Bingo; 2 Helen Blake / Loki; 3 Kat Rushton / Duke; 4 Idraq Alaquel / Ecco; 5 (joint) Anne Koheji / Fine Art, Kate Addison / Chief, Lucy Lunt Bell / Rakard; 6 Kat Rushton / Banjo

Twin Palms Riding Centre
In-House League 2011/2012
Top 3 - Junior A Category:
1 Luna Dreyer / MissPrint 67 points; 2 Paula Canseco / India 38 points 3 Jamiela Haseid /Eid 30 points

Junior B Category:
1 Lucy Lunt Bell /Rakard 72points ; 2 Manon Cote / Sirocco 55 points 3 Anina Bernhardt / Onyx 32points

Adult:
1 Idraq Alaquel / Ecco 99 points; 2 Helen Blake / Loki 83 points; 3 Nina Owen / Otto 72 point