Smiths Lawn - Anyone else walked yet ?

S

sarahs

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Hiya

Me and Saf walked yesterday as Saf is there today and im there tomorrow and I was disgusted by a number of things.
Firstly the ground - alot of the tracks are tarmac !!!!!! they have not prepared any of the take off or landings. It really does look like they have just realised they had an event a couple of days ago and stuck some flags out - oh and some yellow flowers!
Secondly the show jumps are old and falling apart most of the wings are leaning in different directions and there are hardly any fillers - they havent used the show jumps that they use for WPEC sj and they have also used ring 2 which is on the slope. Whilst walking the show jumping a friend found a 4 inch rusty nail in the grass !!!!!!
Smiths Lawn really could be one of the most prestigious events of the year but it looks like they have just thrown it together! Such a shame !
Rant over !

SX
 
Oh dear
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i second Ben_and_Jerrys, something needs to be said
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Quite right Sarahs. Needs to be said.
You pay a lot of money to compete at these events.
The first year I did Smiths it was a nice event, but apart from re-siting the start a few years ago, I believe theyve done very little to the course.
The SJing fences have always been poor, the warm up for the SJing terrible!!!
It seems a shame as the ground being like Tweseldown means you can feel happy to run at this time of year with lack of rain.
I would def take it up with BE!
 
Oh no, I'm there tomorrow and my mare has sensitive little feet - she's feeling them at the moment and I thought she'd be ok at Smiths Lawn because of the sandy going, the decent ring 1 (and I was told they'd improved the SJ warm up). Gutted :-(
 

Thanks guys and I agree that something needs to be said but im slightly nervous of saying something, firstly how would I go about it and secondly would I just be thought of as a moaning old bag and get ballotted from things !

As its so local im going to go and at least do the dressage and probably show jump but I doubt that ill run xc - if I do im expecting tons of time faults ! Its not really sandy at all - more stoney !

S
 
I went 2 yrs ago and thought it was a bit naff then, pity they haven't improved thing. The ground was increadibly hard, bar the polo pitches, and dusty sj warmup++++. The showjumps were very dated and the xc uninspiring, twisty and i hit about 4 trees on the way round. i felt more effort could have been put in. it also felt like an event where "all the londoners came out to play". Real pity as it could be an amazing event otherwise"!
 
it was the same last year, luckilly i walked the course the day before so atleast i didn't waste lorry diesel too. such a shame as said before, years ago it used to be a really top event. the more people that tell them maybe they will pull there finger out for next year, have to say for myself i will cross it off my list.
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I would email BE or whoever the TA is, they ahve nothign to do with who gets balloted so you wont get black listed, you're quite rightly raising your views.

IMO (and its probably wrong to say ti) i think the organisers bite off more than they can chew this week, they do Smiths Lawn and Aston Le Walls and the grassroots festival so can't imagine that helps.

Poor ground pisses me off but if they're trying then its more forgivable, nice SJ's are easy to get hold of and there's no excuse for using rubbish ones!
 
I went last year and I was very unimpressed with the SJ warm up and the XC course. I wont go back. It was alot wetter last summer so I can only imagine what the ground is like this year! Good luck to those going I hope the ground isnt too bad
 
I entered then withdrew when I saw Aston was on the Friday as I dont really like Smiths.

As it happens horse is lame so wouldnt have been going anyway!! And may not be going to Aston but there we go!!

They use all the poop parts of Smiths, be lovely ground if they used the polo fields!
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I also agree about the XC course being uninspiring!
 
I had a nic run there today but the ground was ok, couple of really deep bits though which i tried to avoid! the tarmac bits had verges. Just found it twisty on my boy but it was his first novice YAY!
 
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