Blair Castle Horse Trials 2008
An interesting weekend at Blair, none of the events proved to be dressage competitions with both the cross country and show jumping being very influential (somewhat of an understatement in the three star!). The weather was somewhat changeable as it is in the Highlands with blazing hot sunshine followed by cold heavy rain showers-which the midges loved.
I hadn’t been to Blair before, lovely course from a spectator point of view but unfortunately most of the most dramatic fences were in between trees or in woodland so not so great from a photography angle.
There was some 140 entries for the one star with 21 eliminations/retirals during the cross country. No one fence caused problems many of the problems seemed to be due to riders going a bit fast or horses not being quite fit enough for the course. Regal Rascal and Paul Sims led after the cross country.
The three star followed and I remained at the water jump, a few refusals at the middle element led to riders taking the alternative and as far as I can remember no rider attempted the direct route after Oli Townend took a fall.
Last minute repairs to that fence and the slow reactions of the ground crew led to Duarte Seabra being flagged down no more than about 4 strides away from the water combination taking the direct route. He did well to keep his cool and carry on without mishap over the longer route when restarting.
It seemed that for a while during the three star we watched lots of horses disappearing up the hill to just return down it hand being led or ridden back to the stables. Once more, no single fence was to blame. Paddy Muir and Stanley Brown led overnight after their clear cross country.
The two star ended the day, seemed to be some very tired horses at the end of the course where I was taking pictures, at least one of which IMO were too tired to be jumped home..
Sarah Cohen and Irish Jester led over night with 9 horses retired or eliminated including Ruth Edge on Kilkee (retired) who is one of my favourite horses, having taken pictures of him at Burgie, Floors and Blair!
A marathon showjumping competition the next moring for the one stars. A rather daunting triple combination that ended the course proved too much for many of the earlier competitors. William Fox-Pitt jumped a fast clear on to move up into the top 4 but Paul Sims held onto his overnight lead to win.
The two star competition was also won by the overnight leader Sarah Cohen on Irish Jester.
The real shock of the event was in the three star however. A whole league of cricket scores were obtained, including 32 faults for the overnight leader Paddy Muir, 13 faults for Nicola Malcolm on Mcfly and 33 for Patris Filius.
This left the competition open for the earlier riders including Duarte Seabra and Braveheart who clocked up 4 showjumping faults to lift him from an overnight placing of sixteenth to first.
