Ballindenisk International 10th September 2016

It was 2 years ago that we first travelled to Ballindenisk, and we had fond memories of the fantastic hospitality and the warm welcome we received on arrival.  We were looking forward to revisit.

We had Zagreb and Redpath Ransom on board and both were to compete in the CCI 3*.  It was Redpath Ransom’s first long format 3* so we were keen to see how he would cope with the longer cross country course and the show jumping on the following day.

This was the beginning of our plans to get the horses 4* qualified for the Autumn.

The dressage went well for Redpath Ransom.  He does suffer with his nerves in the atmosphere of a big occasion and this unfortunately can affect his relaxation in the test.  He did have some tense moments but also showed some of his class in other movements.  He received a respectable score of 58.

Zagreb performed a really good test for this stage in the season.  He was a bit cheeky in his flying changes but everything else was as good as I could of expected.  He was awarded a competitive score of 48.1.

The conditions for cross country were perfect.  They had worked hard on the ground so to offer the best going and the weather was dry but cool.  Redpath Ransom set of first and simply ate up the course.  He settled in to a lovely rhythm and skipped across the course.  The final minute I did feel him tire a little, and he started to jump a bit flatter.  I decided to set him up amore carefully because of this over the last few fences which resulted in us being 4 seconds over the time.  Still, not a bad effort for his first long format 3* cross country.

Zagreb was eager to have his go and flew out of the start box.  He showed all of his class popping around the course as if it were a schooling session.  We did have one little stumble at the final water complex where he slightly pitched on landing.  He recovered quickly and jump on home comfortably inside the time.

I was thrilled with both of the horses but we had to keep our eye on the show jumping the next day. so we went to work walking and stretching the horses off throughout the evening.

It was a decent show jumping track with big treble combination that was off of a difficult corner where the undulations of the ground made it difficult to get a balanced approach.  This caused most of the problems by far and unfortunately the middle element caught out Zagreb for a 4 fault round.  Redpath Ransom was a bit more tired on the final day and I had to help him create a powerful jumping canter.  As always he tried his heart out but the fatigue set in towards the end of the round and he had 2 late rails.  This didn’t really effect the result as the show jumping was causing many problems.

My 2 boys both finished in the top 10.  Zagreb 6th and Redpath Ransom 8th.

Not a bad effort at all.  The long journey home is always easier when you’re travelling back after a success!