mytwofriends
Well-Known Member
I've never been to Hickstead in my 50+ years and have always tried to watch it on tv. However this year my daughters and I made the trip and it was excellent seeing all those iconic fences being jumped live.
We had seats right near the bank and could see pretty much the whole course from our carefully picked seats in the grandstand (who are those nutters - up a row, across two more because of that speaker, no down a row .....!?) when there only 3 others there doing the same as we were so early!
The people behind us were chatting non stop and loudly between themselves about anything and everything. Could have been mighty irritating but life's too short! They were having fun and we were astonished how many topics they found to cover!
The weather was kind and the quality of riding was staggering. We were able to see close up the minute adjustments the riders had to take between a very tricky seven strided distance. We'd watched them walk the course and noticed how many of them had to walk that distance more than once. It just brings it home what incredible athletes these top horses are.
No clears except for William Whitaker's near perfect round with his single time fault - and as ever the faults were spread around the course (mostly at the Devil's Dyke but no surprise there!) The course held up well and kudos to the ground staff who'd had to deal with atrocious weather conditions in previous days - there had been talk of calling it off by all accounts.
Anyway it was great, even though mud was rife (but I didn't get stuck in the car park which many did, and I was convinced I would!) We'll definitely go again.
Sorry, a pointless post, but it was a blast. Did anybody else go, or watch it on tv?
We had seats right near the bank and could see pretty much the whole course from our carefully picked seats in the grandstand (who are those nutters - up a row, across two more because of that speaker, no down a row .....!?) when there only 3 others there doing the same as we were so early!
The people behind us were chatting non stop and loudly between themselves about anything and everything. Could have been mighty irritating but life's too short! They were having fun and we were astonished how many topics they found to cover!
The weather was kind and the quality of riding was staggering. We were able to see close up the minute adjustments the riders had to take between a very tricky seven strided distance. We'd watched them walk the course and noticed how many of them had to walk that distance more than once. It just brings it home what incredible athletes these top horses are.
No clears except for William Whitaker's near perfect round with his single time fault - and as ever the faults were spread around the course (mostly at the Devil's Dyke but no surprise there!) The course held up well and kudos to the ground staff who'd had to deal with atrocious weather conditions in previous days - there had been talk of calling it off by all accounts.
Anyway it was great, even though mud was rife (but I didn't get stuck in the car park which many did, and I was convinced I would!) We'll definitely go again.
Sorry, a pointless post, but it was a blast. Did anybody else go, or watch it on tv?