It was a hot evening at Oaks-Blenheim. Thirty-six riders competed.
The course (diagram & photo) proved to be quite brilliant, separating the top riders without demoralizing some of the others. There were not many rails or stops and no eliminations. There were some chips and flyers, but nothing that looked like the horses couldn’t deal with it. The line from 4–>5–>6 rode as a forward 4 to a forward 4. Fence 5 was set more perpendicular to the rail than shown in the linked course diagram. The line from 7–>8 was a forward 5 strides. Fences 5, 6, and 8 (I think that’s right) had low standards at just about fence height. The course encouraged a flowing forward ride.
The judges were George Morris (!) and Scott Fitton. GM posed in the win photos of the top ten–there’s a keepsake.
I was impressed with the riding. There were a couple of experienced riders on what looked like relatively green (for this) horses who did lovely jobs of giving the horse a confidence-building ride. Two of those placed in the top ten. There were several young-looking riders who were pretty impressive
There were two horses that I noticed in kimberwick bits. I didn’t notice any flexible stirrups.
The flat groups were, by number (see class list in first link) as follows. I am pretty sure they were in order of preference in each group. The ones that didn’t come back had stops or major errors.
- Group A - 313, 158, 138, 402, 301, 316, 334, 381, 188, and 652.
- Group B - 336, 312, 275, 187, 162, 642, 272, 315, and 495.
- Group C - 102, 398, 280, 103, 557, 466, 116, 555, and 620.
The flat phase was fairly boring. Trot, sitting trot, canter, walk. Reverse. Repeat. I got the feeling they’d picked their riders. Or they wanted to get home. There wasn’t a lot of movement after the flat.
There was no work off.
The placings are in the first link.
From the iJump Sports Facebook Page: “According to George Morris…‘Skip Bailey set a wonderful course, absolutely a super Finals test, could not have wanted any better! The winner was the clear winner both over the jumps and on the flat. The 2nd place rider was also right there but could not overtake her. The top ‘A’ group was quite outstanding and the middle group was very strong, we rearranged just a tiny bit on the flat but not very much was needed!’”
Link to Blenheim EquiSports Press Release (includes win photo).
I have OK notes if you’re curious about a particular rider.
Next up on the west coast: USET (AKA USEF Talent Search) Finals next week, also at the Oaks for the first time this year.
