Cross-country Sunday!!
Haas went first and gave Emma an unpleasant work-out before retiring x-country. Next Pigeon in his first 1* and she rode him to consolidate the experience, clear, but with a few slow-time faults. Next Paeon; he looked SOO! happy!! motoring around the course, looking at everything but really enjoying himself. CLEAR! Stiil second in this class. I had walked down to the start with Emma and she was rehearsing the time she needed to ride, so as not to have time faults. Then Emma's No.1 ride, Jimmy, and as she passed me on the way to his start she apologised for going 'under-time' on Paeon!!! So he would probably have some time faults.
She then proceeded to ride Jim very conservatively to stay within time, but (in retrospect) probably gave herself a tough time as he wasn't moving happily 'forward' and had a "stop" at the water, which cost him any placing. (Tragic!!)
At the end of the day, Paeon was posted in 1st place, but the scorers hadn't given him time faults for being too speedy. Unfortunately(!!) the 2nd and 3rd placegetters noticed, appealed, and Paeon was re-figured with time faults for going 35 seconds under the maximum time of 5 min17secs, so, at 0.4 penalty points per second this added 14 penalty points to his score and he finished in 3rd place!!
A bit of drama to his first outing....but he didn't notice!! He had a great day, and was certainly a winner in my book!!
I'm supposed to 'sack the jockey' for going too fast, but this is where the trainer-rider has a dilemma: Emma rode him at the perfect pace to maintain his forward momentum so that he met his fences with forward impulsion and no second-thinking. His round looked great!!
Both the on-site photographer, Barry McGregor, and my friend and fellow Saddlebred breeder, Terry Inkson, got some great photos. Some of Terry's are posted here!
At the end of the day, Pigeon's carefulness wasn't a handicap and he finished ahead of the field in 1st place in the 1Star, Paeon won a ribbon and a brush for 3rd in the Newcomers, Jimmy slipped out of the placings, Haas had a stressful off-day and Ashley was happy not to come off DH after a stop on course in the class Pigeon won.
Young Abbie, a work experience pupil of Heath's from Tasmania, did a great job helping gear up the troups in time for their runs!
We were blessed with the weather! Gale force winds at home, but overcast-but-dry on Saturday at Taree, then beautiful blue skies and the bite taken out of the hard ground made for good running, x-country, at Belinda Bailey's Bellview Park property at WIngham on Sunday.Beautiful!!
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