The Eventing international Spring Tour opened 24th February with the 1 and 2 star CIC competitions at Vale Sabroso In the Alentego region, just a few miles away from Comporta where the Show jumping Sunshine tour was taking place. Thursday is a rest day at the show jumping venue so it was no suprise when Marion Hughes showed up at Vale Sabroso to check us out. She has bred and sold some very good event horses and was keen to learn a bit more about our sport. She was suitably impressed and I think quite keen to” have a go” as she put it. So watch this space.
The First event was not without incident mostly due to the adverse weather conditions which were the worst ever recorded in Portugal. Rain rain and more rain!
The weather continued to disrupt the proceedings through the whole event, Thursdays dressage was postponed by a couple of hours which meant it was almost dark when the last competitor completed their test!!
Our horses all performed well, our only disappointment was Kassandra with Shane onboard. She had suffered a reaction to an injection administered for fly bits and was very uncomfortable throughout the test. She had to be withdrawn which was gutting for Shane who had put such a lot of work into her to prepare for this event.
Pimms, our 6 year old was lying 2nd in the 1star which was great as his co-owner and good friend of mine had come over to watch him perform. He was just pipped by Althea Bleekman on the 12 year old Billys boy.
Aristoteles was well placed in 4th in the 2 star in the company of some very good horses. I was particularly please with Shane’s sisters horse TLB Interactive as Rachel only flew in the day before fresh from her exams to ride him having trusted him to me to prepare. She rode him really well and he showed some flashes of what he will do when she will produce when she has more time.
Saturday was a different story…..the high winds of 100km per hour and torrential rain woke everyone bright and early and did not let up through out the day.
The One star managed to run as planned but the going deteriorated with each competitor. Chivas was early on and jumped a super clear with just a few time penalties but Pimms was the last horse to go and had very bad ground resulting in him having a handful of time penalties dropping him down the order to 6th.
Aristoteles stormed around the fastest of any in the two star and finished the day in 2nd place. I decided to withdraw Viper as this was to be her first 2star and I felt the conditions were not ideal for a green one at this level.
Sunday was another day of torrential rain and the Show Jumping phase was not easy.
Pimms pulled up a place to finish 5th and Chivas jumped his usual clear and finished a commendable 7th.
The two star had a nail biting finish but Duarte with Aristoteles and Karin Donkin with her last years winner Lamicell Charizard had identical scores so once again Karin took the very generous 1st prize of a Harley Davison motor Cycle!!!
All results can be found on www.heradevalesabroso.pt
