2011 Round Up
2011 has been a great year. By June almost every horse on the yard had won at their respective levels.
The early highlight of the season was that Charlotte Opperman's 10 year old, Wild Lone, having been placed at both Bramham and Blenheim last season, made is debut 4* appearance at Baminton. He finished a very credible 23rd. Over the past six years Harry has had consistent placings above this at Badminton with other horses, but this was a big step up for a young horse on the improve with a long career ahead of him. Seen in perspective, finishing in the top quarter of the field on a horse's Badminton debut is an exciting platform to build on. Aside from the result, the best thing is that he felt like a true 4* horse, was easily within his comfort zone throughout the week and therefore benefitted from the experience. Harry bought Wild Lone as a 4 year old so it is particularly exciting to see the results of quiet and patient producing pay off.
Unfortunately he missed some work in the run up to Burghley but as a result has benefitted from a full winter of training. Harry has been working closely with Laura Bechtolsheimer and Wild Lone has been making excellent progress. As a result of their Badminton performance they are now qualified for the London Olympics and in contention for team selection.
Nigella Hall's 9 year old Tinkas Time had a great season. At Weston Park OI he led the dressage by a long way on a score of 23 and jumped a double clear to win by a massive 12 marks. From there he went to Ireland to compete at Tattersalls CCI** where he produced a great test of 45 and a super double clear to finish 4th in a strong international field. Another trip to Ireland, this to time Ballendenisk, near Cork, gave Tinka his first CCI*** experience. He produced a good test and made nothing of cross country but struggled in the boggy going on the final day, dropping him down the order.
Tinka's season finished with the final of Express Eventing at HOYS, which was an amazing experience. Birmingham's NEC arena is an alien venue for eventing and provided an electric atmosphere. He performed a highly polished and demanding freestyle dressage test to music that included sequence changes and canter pirouettes (see video), and was one of only 2 horses to jump clear in the show jumping, including the enormous 'joker' last fence, to take 3rd place. It was a wonderful note to finish off the season.
The results of Jan and Peter Price's horses (Tall Story & Easter Fable) speak for themselves. Between the two homebred brothers they notched up sixteen top placings this season:
1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 5th, 5th, 5th, 7th, 7th, 7th.
Similarly, Alex Robinson's A Modern Duchess had a very successful and consistent season, finishing with her first CCI event, at which she did a fantastic test to go well into the lead on a score of 40. Like Tall Story and Easter Fable's results, hers were both competitive and consistent: 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 7th, 9th.
It is great to have a good spread of horses across the levels, all of whom are proving to be very competitive and successful. After a lot of hard work it is also exciting to have broken our personal best mark in dressage tests at every level a number of times this season. Our horses have produced top 3 placed dressage tests at half of the three day events we've competed at this season, which is a great achievement and an exciting upward progression.
We are ever grateful for the ongoing support of World Class, the lottery funded programme, and of course our loyal sponsors. We had a really fun End of Season Party for our owners, sponsors and support team. It is great to be able to work with so many friends.
We are on the look out for more horses so please contact us if you know of any or are interested in joining our team as an owner. We hope to be able to provide a lot of fun!
In the mean time we are waiting for the imminent arrival of our first child! Happy New Year to you all!
