Tweseldown - The Start, The Stars & The Silver Lining

Tweseldown Racecourse - Eventing Continues Whilst Point-To-Point Racing Is No More

Tweseldown's sad demise as a Point-To-Point course last year due to financial pressures did have a silver lining in the form of an improved course for the Open Intermediate classes. With no racing, much more of the turf course has been made available for eventing, including a new start, which I for one think is a godsend. The old start box was a messy affair stuck in the middle of site with sandy tracks leading off in all directions.

Noble Bestman Gets The OI Classes Started In The Mist

It's never been a favourite course of mine personally, but it does usually provide an assured first run in the south for those heading to Badminton, and whilst I can't identify any of them, quite a few of the entries we have for Badminton were out in the OI classes today. Laura Collett has already mentioned on twitter that she has entered both Noble Bestman and Rayef for Badminton so I won't be spoiling anything by mentioning she had both her Badminton bound horses here at Tweseldown, although she only ran Noble Bestman cross country as the ground was very deep and sticky in places thanks to a good dump of rain early in the morning and it stayed grey all day.

Tweseldown And That Pink Life Jacket

Lucinda Fredericks Completes The Cross Country With An Inflated Life Jacket

Are there any eventers left in New Zealand at the moment? Tweseldown hosts one of the season openers for the Open Intermediate class giving Badminton bound horses a pipe opener, and the Kiwis were out in force today. It felt like a third of the field in the 3 OI classes were ridden by New Zealanders, and everytime I looked round there was William Fox-Pitt on course - I recon he accounted for another third of the field!

Andrew Nicholson | One of Several Kiwis Competing

Seriously though, today's OI sections were littered with contenders for Badminton & this year's London Olympics, with a good mix of riders who have little to prove, those bringing horses back from injury, and those challenging for their first slot on a senior team, not to mention those looking to run at Badminton irrespective of the Greenwich gig, with riders from Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and the UK.

The kiwis seemed to be out to win, or at least put their horses' fitness to the test. Andrew Nicholson rarely canters round the cross country and today was no exception giving each of his rides a good run that gave him a first and second in one of the IO classes, followed closely by Mark Todd on NZB Campino, one of the best horses he currently has.

Gatcombe, The Festival of British Eventing 2010 - Friday

Gatcombe Park

I'm extremely flattered to have been asked to contribute to Monty's blog, and hope that I'll be able to hold my end up, as I'm a big fan of Eventing and Horse Trials/Talking Horse.net. Although I currently live in Lexington, KY, home of the 2010 WEG, I'm an english girl at heart, brought up via Enid Blyton, boarding school, British Eventing etc, and nothing pulls at the heart strings more than returning to Gatcombe, home of Princess Anne, in the heart of the Cotswolds.

 It's hard to describe how picturesque and unspoilt this part of the world is; how refreshing to see hedgerows, grazing sheep and cattle dotted in sloping, patchwork fields, narrow roads littered with horse droppings - how I miss hacking out in the countryside!