Trish and Crusoe cruise CIC* South East Asian League Event
Sunday, May 28th, 2006
Story by Peter Ibrahim Abisheganaden, photos by Natasha Mustapha are copyright of Equestrian.Com.MyAustralian Trish Braithwaite won the FEI CIC 1-star South East Asian League Event #2 at the Selangor Turf Club Equestrian Centre today, riding her own Krystallos.
Trish and Krystallos led all the way in this event, the first 1-star to be held in Malaysia since the 2001 SEA Games. They led after the dressage by a massive 16.5 penalties. Although they had no jumping penalties, they picked up 15.2 time faults, allowing Lingesparan to make up some ground on them. Overnight they still had 2 fences and change in hand, but “Crusoe” as he is known, has been known to be quite careless in the showjumping ring, and 2 fences was not a margin they would have been too comfortable with.
2nd placed Lingesparan refused to take his chance though as he determined to go faster than his cross-country round, pulling the whip even on the way into the very first fence, a smallish 1 m oxer. Coming at lightning speed to the triple bar at No 5, Geronimo did the sensible thing and slammed on the brakes. There were no more stops but this it was not the type of round Linges would want to show to his students. Three fences came down for 19 fault round, which included 3 time faults.
Trish must have been watching this and rubbing her hands in glee. It gave her a safety margin of just over 30 faults, and meant she virtually only had to cross the finish line to win it. That she did with Crusoe’s customary two down. She still stuck to her plan and rode all the inside lines necessary to make it just inside the very tight time allowed.
MSN Sports School rider Edric Lee and Torbek had five fences down but still managed to finish in 3rd place just ahead of Ong Wan Ming and Aachen, who had two fences down. Edric shouldn’t bee too happy with a poor jumping performance by Torbek, who never really handled the 1.15 m track.
Wan Ming on the other hand can take heart that she has found an Asian Games prospect in Aachen. They handled the 1.15 m course generally quite well, and throughout the event showed themselves as real prospects for Doha. They were second after the dressage and only a minor rider accuracy error in the cross-country was to cost them dearly. Hazrin Abdullah will not be happy with his ride of Jimmy Chow in the showjumping. It was an artless ride to the treble that was to cost them their pride, with a fall, and having remounted, an elimination.
The judges, Natasha Mustapha and Nicoli Fife of New Zealand, who is one of the judges for the Doha Asian Games, said, “The riders still have more work to do, but some have shown potential and are very capable of doing a good one-star.”
For Trish it was nice to win with Crusoe at STCEC, where they are now based. The 14 year old French Thoroughbred was bought by Trish in 1999. An ex-racehorse, he had raced in France, Ireland and in Singapore as Krystallos. She did all the retraining herself, then competed him in Indonesia from 2001 to 2004 while she was stationed there with her husband Scot. They shipped him back when they returned to Malaysia in early 2004. Trish was ecstatic with her win, and joked “I SMS’d Chris Ladbrook (the winner of the 1st leg) to say thanks for not being here, so that I could win.” When asked for a quote, she said, “I don’t know what to say. I am just very, very happy to win.”
Ahmad Imtiaz of Perak Turf Club made his trip to Kuala Lumpur worthwhile by winning the Preliminary grade with Super Jogger. Mohd Aizat of MSN Sports School was 2nd with a good catch ride on Sorrento. Only four riders finished the Preliminary event.
Nine riders made to the finish line in the Introductory Event. Mohd Faidz of MSN and Rocky were the winners. STCEC's Ee Bee Yan had a fantastic weekend to finish in 2nd place with Gary. Mohd Jefri of MAFEC and Harold Star were 3rd.
Results Links:
(Please click on these links to download excle files with full results)
FEI CIC* - South East Asian Eventing League #2
Preliminary Event
Introductory Event
Related Links:
Trish holds lead in CIC* after cross- country
Trish leads CIC* after dressage
