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RICHLAND PARK HORSE TRIALS

 

Date: August 24th – 27th 2017

 

Running order of Divisions:  Friday CIC**, CIC*.  Sunday CIC***

 

Arena: 300ft x 340ft Grass

 

Starters/Clear Rounds: 

CCI 1 Star – 47/19 (40%)

CCI 2 Star – 61/26 (43%)

CCI 3 Star – 024/7 (29%)

 

Having built in this grass arena in the past I know it is not easy, as it is uneven and has a fair slope diagonally down to the in-gate.

 

Designing on grass you do not have the advantage of dragging the arena during Divisions to level out the footing, and sometimes fences have to be moved onto new ground when the footing begins to break up.  With Divisions being held on two different days this does give more time to do this, but adding additional fences to be jumped, in different classes, can also take the pressure off the footing.

 

While All-Weather arenas need more maintenance (water and dragging) during the days of competition, grass arenas need year round work to maintain their consistency on the day.  While the top layer of grass is important for ‘looks’, it is the root system that is the most important to keep the ground from breaking up.  Too much year round watering can prevent the roots from going deep, looking for water, and thus not giving the right amount of binding together that is needed to keep the footing firm.

 

The Course Designer in his Evaluation mentions that the courses could have benefited from being more technical.  With two five stride lines and one four stride line, plus a triple combination of vertical/oxer/oxer in the Tree Star and three five stride lines and a triple of oxer/oxer/vertical in the Two Star, I would have thought these courses were technical enough.

 

In fact with three five stride lines I would say this is also a little repetitive, but this may not have been the original intention, but the striding was changed to what was planned, due to the ground conditions.  At most Four Star Events and major Championships we rarely see more than one five stride line, partly due to the large size of the arenas, and the need to allow the spectators to view the competitors at least twice on their side of the arena.  Therefore, it is not always necessary to introduce this question at the lower levels, too often.

 

There was a lot of reversing of fences between the Two and One Star Divisions, but with good help this can happen quickly, especially with the metric keyhole cup system.  However, with less oxers, as mentioned on the Evaluation sheet, this would have reduced the amount of oxers to reverse. When on grass, if you have an unrelated oxer, you can create a new take-off and landing spot by moving the back pair of wings to the other side of the fence.

 

It is interesting to note that the final line in the Two Star was reversed for the One Star, but the course plans show the same distances were used.  As this was on sloping ground (down to the in-gate) it would be good to know how this line of jumps rode in each Division.  I would regard the distances, as shown, would be normal on flat land, so I would suspect that being the last line in the Two Star, and downhill, this line could have ridden quite tight.

 

 

Richard Jeffery

USEF Eventing Show Jumping Course Advisor

Forms and Publications

Richland Park Horse Trials CIC3*, CIC2*, CIC1* Show Jumping Course Evaluation

Richland Park Horse Trials CIC3*, CIC2*, CIC1* Show Jumping Course Evaluation

Richland Park Horse Trials CIC3* Show Jumping Course

Richland Park Horse Trials CIC3* Show Jumping Course

Richland Park Horse Trials CIC2* Show Jumping Course

Richland Park Horse Trials CIC2* Show Jumping Course

Richland Park Horse Trials CIC1* Show Jumping Course

Richland Park Horse Trials CIC1* Show Jumping Course

Resources