Sam Jeffree and Woodmount Lolita
An Eventful Life is filming all competitors on cross country at
Tonimbuk International Horse Trials 2021 - order or view videos here
Sam Jeffree and Woodmount Lolita, a 13-year-old mare competing at her first CCI4*, lead at the Cardinia Shire Tonimbuk International Horse Trials after Saturday’s dressage and show jumping phases.
“I’ll be happy if she completes all phases as well as she can” said 23-year-old Sam before today’s competition started, knowing that he faced a formidable opponent in South Australia’s Olympic medallist Megan Jones.
Megan, who makes Tonimbuk a part of her calendar each year, and her 14-year-old chestnut mare with the distinctive face markings, Kirby Park Impress, certainly looked the part as they entered the sand arena at lunch time today.
They took the lead after the dressage phase on a score of 27.10 ahead of the 2019 Australian Young Rider Champions, Sam and Woodmount Lolita, who scored 29.60. They were the only two sub-30 scores with Kirilee Hosier riding Regal Red Jasper in third place on 36.70.
Megan Jones and Kirby Park Impress
This event, held at the Tonimbuk Equestrian which includes two large indoor arenas, is unusual that the show jumping phase of the classes are held indoors for all classes. The arenas were busy today with the EvA95 and EvA80 classes while the CCI3* and CCI4* competitors jump indoors under lights in the late afternoon and evening
The unusual atmosphere of the indoor arena can often have an effect on horses that usually jump well outdoors and this may have been the case this evening with none of the 4* competitors jumping a clear round.
But it was Sam and Woodmount Lolita that incurred the least faults, adding just four penalties to take the lead on 33.60 when Megan picked up 12 penalties to swop places with Sam and now head in tomorrow’s cross country in second place on 39.10.
Sophie Fox and the lovely thoroughbred Mr Pig are now in third place, also incurring 12 show jumping faults, on 49.60 while the other competitors all added 16 penalties in the show jumping phase.
Sophie Fox and Mr Pig. His brand looks like PIG (hence the name), but it's actually P169
We'll be back with final results tomorrow evening after cross country day and full reports from across the classes next week
Don't forget to stay tuned to our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for video snippets and more during the weekend ....
Well done Mummy. A kiss for the dressage leader Megan from her son Finn
