Australian eventing rider Christine Bates flew to the UK with her horse Bloomfield Findon in mid-July and almost immediately racked up a very good win.
The normally NSW-based Christine and her 10-year-old Bloomfield Findon had their first hit-out in England at Aston-Le-Walls in late July but opted to just do the dressage and jumping phases. Their second event was the Open Intermediate at Dauntsey Park on Monday 3rd August (yes, they have competitions on all sorts of days in the UK!), which proved to be very fruitful.
Christine had a very good start on their dressage score of 24.3 (just pipped by Daisy Berkeley and her Badminton horse this year, Diese Du Figuier, on 23.6), showjumped clear and then added just 8.4 time penalties on cross country to finish on 32.7, ahead of Izzy Taylor riding Barrington Boy (37.3) and Jack Pinkney riding MBF Jackpot (38.1).
Added to the thrill of an early win on British soil was the prizemoney of £1000, thanks to the class sponsor Cirencester Dental Practice (and for all of you in Australia thinking of moving to the UK, we have to add that this sort of prizemoney at this level of event is pretty rare!).
It was a good event for the Antipodeans with New Zealand’s Tayla Mason riding EG Tiger Chilli taking the Saturday Open Intermediate Section E1 and the Novice Section F on board Qwink plus Lissa Green riding Captain Morgan L winning the BE100 Open Section C.
Christine and Bloomfield Findon, who were nominated on the original squad of 15 for the Australian team at the FEI World Championship Aachen, now continue their preparation for Blenheim Palace International in September and we’ve got more coming up from them in a full interview soon!
