Four days of spectacular competition and entertainment were completed yesterday at Blair Castle in Perthshire when nine Parachutists from the RAF Falcons Display Team floated into the main arena with the London 2012 flag to coincide with the Olympic closing ceremony in Beijing.
The RAF were involved to highlight the work they have been doing with BHS Scotland, Blair's nominated charity for 2008, on low flying aircraft.
The three star CCI three day event was filled with drama over the weekend. First of all 11 of the 31 runners either retired or were eliminated on the cross country course, then yesterday the overnight leader, Paddy Muir and Stanley Brown had 32 penalties in the showjumping to drop to ninth place. Second placed rider overnight, Lucy Holiday and High Times had a fall in the showjumping and were eliminated which meant the winner, coming up from fifth place overnight was young Portugese rider, Duarte Seabra and Brave Heart.
With a dressage score of 59.8 and in 16th position, he thought he had no chance of winning the Duke of Atholl Trophy but only 11.2 time faults cross country and one fence down in the showjumping left him on a final score of 75 which was good enough to take first place.
Second was Clark Montgomery from the USA with the grey gelding, Raconteur. This is his first season eventing in Britain and he finished on a score of 76.1.
Chris King from England was leading the dressage on a score of 43.5 and thought his 20 jumping penalties and 13.2 time faults on Saturday would put him out of the competition, came up into third place on a score of 76.7.
Nicola Malcolm from Renfrewshire, who was a member of the European Young riders team which won gold at Blair Castle last year was the top Scot in tenth place on a score of 94.3 with her own McFly.
A fantastic dressage score of 38.4 put England's Sarah Cohen in first place of the CCI two star on the first day and faultless cross country and showjumping rounds meant she stayed there until yesterday. She was riding Irish Jester owned by Angela Tucker, Fran Morgan and Miles Cohen on which she won Rolleston advanced class in June.
Last year's two and three star winner, William Fox-Pitt, who just recently arrived home from Hong Kong where he took a team bronze, came second with the Hon Mrs T Stopford Sackville's Coll Mountain. He also finished on his dressage score of 39.9.
New Zealand's Dan Jocelyn finished third on Savoir Faer, adding 0.4 of a time penalty on Saturday and four showjumping penalties to his first day score for a total of 45.8.
Nicky Roncoroni and the horse she shares with Philip Kerr, Mistral de Blondel was the best of the Scottish riders, finishing in 17th place on a score of 59.6.
Paul Sims from Cheshire was thrilled to win the one star class with Regal Rascal, who he only took over the ride on this year. The eight-year-old bay gelding belongs to Roger Griffiths and Alex Calder and went clear within the time cross country and clear showjumping to finish on his dressage score of 46.1.
Richard Jones from Leicester rode David Miles' Highland Ford into second place with a clear showjumping round when the second place overnight, Dutchman, Andrew Heffernan accumulated 24 penalties in the showjumping to drop to 39th.
William Fox-Pitt was third and fourth on Corofin Flyer and Bay Tokay respectively, finishing on his dressage scores of 48.6 and 52.5.
Best of the Scottish riders was Peter Laidlaw in 16th place with Dark Crusader, while local rider Will Murray from Dunning won the new Brian Smith Trophy for the highest placed Perthshire rider on Katrina Geddes' Queens Brigade. |
Blair
Castle
