A First for Bolesworth, Ceiren Fallon & Roger Teal

For the first time in over one hundred days, all the main disciplines in the UK were able to compete this weekend. With eventing at Barbury, normally an international competition, but this year scaled down, Twesledown and Aske, eventing started again much to the relief of the riders. In dressage, several venues held classes as did showjumping. Racing continued with the famous July Cup as the feature race of the weekend at Newmarket. All the fixtures which took place had the one thing in common; they were all held behind closed doors.

Eventing

The only international event was held in France at Jardy and had various CCI classes. This event was re-scheduled from early May. At Barbary, there were several national classes over two days, the main one being an intermediate with 30 out of 42 runners completing. The winner was Rose Nesbitt riding Michaelangelo. Several top riders were out to stretch their legs including Zara Tindall, Harry Mead and Alexander Bragg. At Twesledown, the competition was more for grassroots of the sport, but that didn’t stop the likes of Tina Cook, Christopher Burton and William Fox-Pitt attending. The winner of the main class was Dani Evans riding C Born Fresh Z winning the intermediate. At Aske in Yorkshire, it was a particularly good day for Wills Oakden who took the first two places in the intermediate class riding MacGregors Cooley, the winner and Hilton Cooley who came second. Other big names at the show were Nicola Wlson and Rosalind Canter. This week saw the announcement that at The Grassroots Championships sponsored by Science Supplements at Badminton in 2021 will be competed by those who qualified for the 2020 championships. This means that the 2020 qualifiers will not actually compete at the venue until 2022.

Racing

Frankie Dettori has won every one of the Group 1 races in the UK except one, The July Cup at Newmarket over six furlongs. This year he had a great chance on Sceptical, a horse he rode to third in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot recently. He had to overcome Hello Youmzain who won the race as well as other decent winners, Oxted and Golden Horde. In a twelve runner race, Frankie was always prominent but did not have the legs to beat Oxted, ridden by apprentice jockey Cieren Fallon and trained by Roger Teal. This was the first Group 1 that either trainer or jockey have won. In the other Group 1 at the famous Newmarket July meeting, The Falmouth Stakes over a mile for mares and fillies, Jim Crowley rode Nazeef to win for trainer John Gosden with Thousand Guineas winner of two years ago Billesdon Brook coming second in the six runner contest. In other racing news, the Tattersalls Ireland sales for store horses has been postponed and moved to the Newmarket venue. This is due to the Irish Government’s regulations for anyone coming into the country having to self-quarantine for two weeks after arrival. It made any chance of the scheduled sale this week to go ahead impossible. The sale will now take place in August.

Showjumping

British Showjumping has announced a re-scheduling of their National Champions following the original cancellation by Grand Stand Media at Stoneleigh. It will now take place at Bolesworth International arena for nine days in August. It would appear from the statement that Bolesworth will continue to be the new home for these championships In the future. A new initiative has been agreed by British Breeding and Clip my HorseTV for the elite winners of the young horse Futurity for 2018, 2019 and 2020 to be offered by auction in September. This follows the success of suctions both in Australia, UK and Germany with lock down auctions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dressage

The FEI announced this week that they have promoted four judges to 5 star international judges. They are Peter Storr from GB, Kurt Christiansen of Denmark, Lars Anderssen of Sweden and Ulrike Nevelle of Germany. This gives Germany seven 5 start judges with Great Britain five and France and Denmark with four each. There were no FEI competitions this weekend, but last week, Isabell Werth came out to score over 80% on DSP Quantaz in Austria to take the top spot. Due to the difficulties experienced in Sweden with Covid-19, the Swedish have announced that they will not be sending any teams to the European young rider championships to be held in Hungary this year. Despite British Dressage trying to put on a full calendar of events, many venues are still cancelling due to not being ready to conform to the necessary protocols.

Sharing is caring!