NZ's final event for the season was  held in Taupo this weekend  past  , supported by  the wonderful long time sponsorship of  BELL TEA .
Weather was a mixed bag, each day starting with thick fog which burnt off on  XC day to glorious sun, and touch of rain late Sunday  .
The CCI*** was won by NZ Olympian rider Heelan Tompkins showing her fine form on yet another catch ride, the 16 yo TB "Major Difference"  owned by Crothers family.
He is such a superb scopey clean jumper and lovely to see this horse have such a good win .  Dressage has never been his forte but  this was prob one of his best  dressage tests to date, definetly improving !!! Well done Heelan.
Annie Styles and "Opera Groove"   took 2nd place after a classy performance XC round and SJing clean. He was a bit 'naughty ' in the dressage, showing moments of brilliance  but of course marked harshly for the moments of  tension.
Click here to watch some of the CCI*** horses attack the meaty water jump !!!
"Bates Trademark"  took out the CCI** with a fine performance 4th after dressage  and double clear jumping. This big tall horse is still got alot of developing to do  and  Bryce is keen to keep him on to have one last shot at higher levels before calling it a day he tells us !!!
Last years CCI*** winner , Donna Smith and the stunning grey Hannoverian  "Corambo" took out the CCI*,  leading with a beautiful dressage test to score 40 .
A large class of pre novice horses was won by the very popular rider  Liza Johns on "Silent Seeker"  ( bred by Mamaku Stud ).
On a terribly sad note, our dear friend Nick Brooks lost his  beloved and very talented young TB gelding  Tangleton (  aka Digby ) on XC day (  suffered fatal aneurism ) , doing what he loved best , running and jumping XC.........   RIP Digs !!!!
 

Received  great news from UK this morning, "Parklane Hawk"  completed his first UK  3*  at Chatsworth on leading dressage score 43.5, and double clear jumping to finish 5th. William sensibly took it easy xc as still early days and more intent on building a solid baseline for the future so added some time faults but totally thrilled with how Parker  is going.
 Click here to see full results from Chatsworth International and  follow progress of the  NZ riders competing.

A huge  congratulations to 2 of our good clients ,  on  their fine  performances at Jersey Fresh Horse Trials, USA . Tiana Coudray had an awesome win on her fabulous grey "Ringwood Magister" , leading from start to finish by a margin of 12 marks. We keep in touch with Coudray family  and watch her progress closely  as they  bought the  talented young TB  "Kelso" via QNZH, which they are delighted with .
Heather Gillette on her special NZ eventer  "Our Questionare ", finished well in the same 3* class  with clear xc and a qualifying score for 4*.  Way to go Heather and Questy !!!!!

On the gossip front, the super talented 2* eventer "Underdiscussion" has just flow over 'the ditch' to join the powerful stable of Australian rider Chris Burton. Ironically he was bred in Australia and was purchased as a youngster to join Christine Weal's dressage team. He had competed pure dressage until just over 12 months ago, and eventer Donna Smith started eventing  him , whipping through the grades from  Novice to 2* in the short space of 9 months to win two 2* horse trials with ease.

Well our season is drawing to a close with our final big show  this week, the Bell Tea National 3 Day Event Championships held at Taupo.   A  Pre Novice class is added this year enticing  90 entries, along with the CCI***, CCI**, CCI* and Young Event Horse class .   Click  here for provisional time table.  Take note the dressage starts on Thursday morning .
Watch this space for news and pictures of the Taupo event and here's  hoping the weather is kind to us this year !!!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS  to  Alain Santoni and his clients  from  Tahiti on their purchase of six  NZ sport  horses  we found them . 
They were impressed with the  quality of the 30 horses we presented to them  and the 6 horses  they chose are currently doing a 30 day quarantine  before heading off on a ship for the 5 day trip up to Tahiti. 
They even have an exercise area on the ship ( leading  only !!!)    and get fed loads of food  so they will no doubt be verging on 'porky' by the time they arrive at their new stables.  
It is very tempting to check out their new 'digs' up in Tahiti .... sounds rather nice up there !!! 

This past weekend 7-9th May  saw the  World Cup qualifier staged in Sydney. Leading  Australian based riders were out in force and Clark Johnstone and Jenna Mahoney flew  their horses over from NZ .
Chris Burton  really deserved his win on the  17 yo Warmblood mare Holstein Park Leilani , being the only combination to  finish on his dressage score of 46.5   Chris had no time penalties  XC   moving up from 4th place after dressage creating a nail biting finish in the SJing.  He will no doubt be hoping this fine performance will catch the selectors eye for WEG games selection later this year !!!
Winning going into SJ ring, Megan Jones on her Olympic mount Kirby Park Irish Jester sadly rolled a rail  to drop to 2nd ,   nearly pulling off her 2nd World Cup win this year . Oh so close ..........
NZer Clark Johnstone with his lovely TB gelding Orient Express  pulled up from 5th in dressage , to finish in 3rd place on 52.6 which is a wonderful result in such top class company.
To top off Clark's campaign, he had a super win taking out the  CIC** with Kolora Stud Secrets.  This is  a relatively new mount for Clark,  who  was originally from Australia, produced  to 3* level by Chris Burton and purchased by Clark end of 2009.  
Jenna Mahoney went well to finish 10th , with a few time faults xc and 2 rails Sjing to add  to her dressage score.

So Megan and Clark are leading the HSBC series   to date on 138  and 128 points  respectively. With  the new ranking system in place for 2010 they have a chance of sharing US$180,000 prize money at end of series .... however there are still 8 qualifier events  to come  ( see calender below )!!!

 

It have been such an exciting 2 weeks for the International  scene of eventing !!!!
23-25th April , Rolex Kentucky CCI**** was wonderful as always.  Leading UK rider William Fox-Pitt won  with ease , jumping without faults to  finish on his winning dressage score , riding the  good looking  10 yo TB  "Cool Mountain ". William had a crazy  adventure getting to Lexington  as the closure of many  European airports caused massive travel disruptions, but where there's a 'Will '  there's  a way.  A kind neighbour  offered to fly William to Madrid in a  private jet , where he met up with fellow UK rider Oli Townend ( who had taken a train to Paris then a taxi to Madrid ) and after several connecting flights ,  they arrived at final destination .
Sadly Oli had a nasty fall during the XC  on "Ashdale Cruisemaster"   and now has 7 broken bones ( ouch !!!) . This brought an abrupt end to his campaign to win the Rolex Grand Slam but Oli  is very lucky , he is up and out and about  and his injuries are  not life threatening.
NZ's sole entry  Jonathon 'Jock' Paget riding "Clifton Promise"  flew his horse from NZ prior to the event  and completed his first 4* safetly finishing 27th.  Although not a competitive score, it was a great experience for the partnership to build for the future , so well done Jock !!!

Badminton was so exciting this year and the dressage leaders all dropped by the way after after the imposing  XC course.
What  an amazing  job Hugh Thomas did designing the course. It had perfect results with problems spread over a variety of jumps and only 3  clear xc rounds inside the time allowed.
The very popular Australian Paul Tapner had the biggest win of his career , taking out the title with the  experienced 4* horse "Inonothing" moving up from  11th in the dressage phase. Other remarkable statistics in  the final placings were, Daisy Berkeley on
" Springalong "  moved up from 25th after dressage to finish 3rd and Caroline Powell moved up from 33rd to finish 5th ........WOW   !!!!
Click here to hear Paul, Andreas and Daisy speak  at end of competion.  Good story to hear how  " Inonothing" was a bit of a nightmare  as a young horse. These extremelly talented horses are often extroverts at the end of day and are usually quirky in some way so it sort of comes with the goods really !!!
Also interesting to note all the top placed horses were very experienced, successful 4* horses.
NZ had 4 of our riders in the top 20 placings , with Caroline in 5th on her wonderful
" Lenamore" finishing the best .  It was such a pleasure  to watch  Mark Todd  guide ' NZB Grass Valley ' around the XC ,  building the horse's  confidence as they went. Mark is really thrilled with  the relatively inexperienced horse's performance this weekend and hopes this fine show of form may catch the NZ selectors eye for the upcoming WEG games later this year in Kentucky to finish 18th.
Click here to here interview with Mark  Todd straight after his SJ ing round.