The new grass-roots British Eventing fixture dubbed ‘Little’ Hopetoun proved a very welcome addition to Scotland’s depleted event calendar for 2013.
A total of 471 horse-and-rider combinations ran over 27 sections spanning the weekend.
Although at first glance the cross country courses looked relatively straightforward, each took their fair share of prisoners.
Ultimately only 271 of the competitive starters from BE80 level up to novice came home with an XC clear.
The greatest number of scalps was claimed by the novice course, with only 35 of the 84 starters keeping a clean penalty sheet and just eight of these stopping the clock inside the optimum time.
Celebrating from the sidelines as she watched Fife rider Wills Oakden pilot her horse Nordic Diamond Dan to achieve one of those all-important fast clears was Aberdeen’s Annabel Sall, who is expecting her first baby later this year.
Adding a clean sheet to a strong dressage of 26.5, Dan made light work of the more testing questions on the track to romp home with his first win from his debut outing at this level.
Annabel, who had planned to make the step up to novice level with Dan herself this year, said: “I decided to offer Wills the ride as I felt his talent and quiet manner with his other horses would be ideal for Dan’s nature and they have struck up a wonderful partnership.”
She bought the eight-year-old gelding, sired by Nordic Region, when he was a five-year-old.
“He’s a big spooky horse so it has taken time to build his confidence but, with Wills’ encouragement around the bigger track, he had a super round.”
Wills praised the Hopetoun organisers for raising the standard of courses north of the Border: “It was a great, modern track. All the courses in Scotland can’t be ‘first time novice’standard. This event has gone in the right direction. It was great they raised the bar,” he said.
Since Dan joined Wills for Scotsburn, where they took a win at BE100 level, they have jumped double clear on every outing.
They head next to Eglinton, where Dan and Annabel last year achieved an incredible win in the BE100 regional final on a dressage penalty of just 19.5.
Meanwhile, Cupar’s Lorna Balfour who has just completed a diploma in professional legal practice at Edinburgh University was making the most of a summer of riding, before she begins a legal traineeship with Gillespie
MacAndrew, by taking another of the novice wins.
She has owned her 10-year-old mare, Made to Order, since April last year. Having achieved qualification, all roads will now lead them to the international CCI* at Blair Castle.
“I train with Alistair Gatherum, at Edenside for my jumping, and with Vicky Flynn at Kedlock for dressage. They have both been a huge help for me,” said Lorna.
She said she was very pleased with Darcy in all three phases at Hopetoun, rolling one pole on a 33 dressage, and becoming another rider to jump clear inside the time XC.
“The showjumping was a twisty track and I let her make up too much ground coming into the last double, so was gutted to have had the last fence down she was jumping brilliantly,” said Lorna.
“Across country she was absolutely awesome,” she added.
“It was a very twisty track but I found that the skinny at number eight rode well when ridden forward, which suited me.
“The course asked a good number of questions, with a good variety of jumps lots of double skinnies and it was beautifully presented.
“I’m heading back to do the CIC* at Hopetoun now at the end of July.”
Stirling rider Rosie Williams and her consistent 11-year-old ex-racer Jaffna took the under-18 novice win.
“I was very pleased with Jaffna’s 27.5 dressage test,” commented Rosie.
“This has always been our strongest phase but it has been improved greatly by my dressage instructor Adrian Taylor, who I have worked with since I was seven years old doing Scottish dressage teams.
“David Harland has also worked miracles with our showjumping.”
Rosie, who recently left school and will shortly begin her BHS exams, has ridden Jaffna for the last three seasons, competing up to intermediate level and recently coming eighth at Burgham.
“Jaffna is very experienced at this level now, so we didn’t have too much of a problem with the cross country,” she added. “I took all the direct routes which rode well.”
They head next to Eglinton to contest the open intermediate under-21 class.
“We are hoping to have a good solid result there and a confidence-boosting round before returning to Hopetoun for the CIC**,” added Rosie.
Across the plethora of grass-roots sections Fife’s Elaine McDonald and her horse Wizzard V added to a recent win at Kirkley Hall by topping BE90 section O, whilst Stirlingshire’s Emma Buchanan and her mare Venus Eclipse
topped BE100 section G.
Elaine bought 10-year-old ‘Wizzy’, a horse which had previously done very little, as a five-year-old.
“I felt his dressage test at Hopetoun was nice and rhythmical. His dressage breeding, with Florestan as his grand sire, stands him in good stead and he has had consistently gained marks in the 20s recently,” said Elaine.
“I realised recently that he needed to be far more in front of my leg cross country, and so I have worked on that strategy with my trainer Alwyn McLain and it seems to have paid off.
“We came home clear and about 23 seconds under the time cross country at Hopetoun.”
Elaine is now planning to establish more confidence in this phase before moving up the levels later in the season.
Emma similarly bought Venus as a very inexperienced and green seven-year-old two seasons ago. They skipped around the cross country in the BE100 which was peppered by eliminations after a large number of riders completely missed the Owl Hole at fence 11.
Emma, who has taken a year out to work with her horses before starting university in September to study human and veterinary physiotherapy, has regular lessons with Linda Lucey.
“She’s helped me out so much,” she said.
“Venus was a star in all three phases at Hopetoun. I had a blonde moment in the dressage, but apart from that she was fabulous.
“She gave me a brilliant run across country. She was very confident over most of the fences, which was nice as she’s still quite inexperienced.”