Great going at Stratford Hills

      Izzy Taylor and Star Commander

 

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In its sixteenth year of running, Stratford Hills Horse Trials near Colchester, received an abundance of praise from competitors for extensive work on the ground conditions and course presentation.

Organiser, Gillie Cranfield was “extremely grateful for all the hard work put in by landowners and course builders as well as all the officials and volunteers without whom events like this could not happen”

Over seeding earlier in the year by the land owners, changes to the route of the courses to preserve the going, extensive watering and repeated aerovating by David Carpenter’s team resulted in some of the best going at the event despite the prolonged hot and dry weather.

“We were really pleased with the course and the going.  The land owners had already done a large amount of work to help improve the going with further over seeding and ground work planned for this Autumn ahead of the 2019 event.  The general feedback from competitors seems positive, which is a good reflection of the effort the team have put in” confirmed course builder David Carpenter.

Horse of the Year Show winner Polly Eddis, who placed 4^th in the BE100 with Cashelbay JJ loved the event

“What a fabulous event…the ground was really good, having a mainly very good grass cover and having been watered and aerovated, including the show jumping and dressage areas.  Best of all, a great atmosphere, super stewards from the lovely man in the car park to the fence judges and to the ladies giving out the numbers.  Just a really super event which could have taken more entries and deserves to be over subscribed”

 

      Tom Jackson had a successful event

 

The Novice sections were dominated by Tom Jackson, who produced a 1, 2 finish with No Limit II and Forrest Gump 124 finishing on 24.3 and 28.7 respectively.  The young rider from Kent also took the Open Novice with Fire Fly on 30.8. 

It was Izzy Taylor though, who currently ranks 7^th in the world FEI rankings, who had a busy morning in Saturday’s BE100 classes, with five rides completing.  As one of Britain’s leading lady riders, the back to back 3* winner from Bramham and Tattersalls, provided spectators and competitors alike a masterclass in riding five horses to their times and all bar one within the cross-country time.  Star Commander II was the only one not to complete inside the time, coming home 1 second over, giving a good indication of the quality of the going.

 

        Caroline Powell and Warren Hills Pocket Rocket

 

New Zealand’ s Caroline Powell, who lives locally, was another to have a successful weekend with a small string of young horses, with Shore To Shore finishing 4^th on their 28.5 dressage in Saturday’s highly competitive BE100 Open.

“It was a great trip to Stratford Hills, which is one of our more local events.  I rode three beautifully presented courses and it was clear that a lot of extra effort had gone into making the ground as good as it was.  I was more than happy to run my young horses” said Caroline

The BE100 Open was won by local grassroots star Joanne Watts with Darc Legend, with whom she recently finished 8^th in the Mitsubishi Motors Cup BE90 Championship at Badminton Horse Trials in May.

“I wasn’t expecting it at all (the win) as I thought the company in the section looked rather tough.  He went really well in all phases.  Stratford Hills is such a friendly and well run event and I thought they had made a lot of effort with the ground and the grass cover was great”