Wills and Gaby will now join leading British and foreign eventers at the British Open Show Jumping Championships at Birmingham’s NEC (7th – 10th April) on Thursday 8th April after securing their place at the British Eventing JAS 2010 Final at Addington Manor Equestrian Centre qualifier last Saturday (27th February).
The Bailey’s Jumping and Style series (JAS) is an ‘Indoor Eventing’ competition run from January to February to provide competition experience in preparation for the start of the British Eventing season. Horse and rider compete over a show jumping course followed by a second round against the clock over a series of indoor cross country style fences. Riders are also given a ‘style’ mark by the judges which is combined with penalties to arrive at the final score. The winner will be the horse with the lowest penalty score at the end of the competition. The penalty score will consist of: a style mark for the horse and rider judged by an accredited trainer or elite rider over the show jumps and cross country fences, awarded out of 60 and converted to penalty marks. This will be added to the cross country time penalties and jumping penalties incurred during both phases.
18 year old Wills Goodhew finished on an impressive total score of only 5.0 penalties with his aptly named, nine year old gelding, More Luck. ‘Lucky’ (stable name) jumped foot perfectly on the night to take the title from an impressive start list including former British Open Indoor Cross Country winner, Georgie Spence. Lucky can be nervous and spooky occasionally but showed his quality to comfortably take the lead finishing with only two time penalties to add to his style score. This bodes very well for Wills’ plans to campaign the Young Rider classes with him this season.
Wills’ mother, Pella Goodhew commented ‘We are thrilled to qualify for the British Open! Wills and Lucky took the lead with ten more still to jump so it was extremely nerve wracking watching the competition, fearing Wills would be pipped to the post at any time!’’
Third placed Gaby Cooke also qualified after David Doel chose to withdraw from the British Open Final with other commitments lined up. Gabby and her 15 year old gelding, Northcroft Frontier, finished on a final score of 10.0 penalties and are now on course for the British Open Indoor Cross Country Final!
The Indoor Cross Country competition at the British Open Show Jumping Championships is a competition not to be missed. Britain’s top equestrian course designer, Bob Ellis, and Eventing guru Mike Tucker will create the course of approximately 16 jumps consisting of show jumps and cross country fences – some of which will be jumped in both directions. The show jumps will be set at near maximum height allowed in Eventing and will form the first phase of the course. The exhilarating event was launched to great acclaim at the 2006 British Open Show Jumping Championships continuing each year to provide visitors the only opportunity in the UK to witness top-level indoor cross country alongside world-class show jumping and thrilling equestrian entertainment.
The British Open Show Jumping Championships takes place at the NEC, Birmingham from Wednesday 7th – Saturday 10th April 2010. For tickets, call the Box Office on 0844 581 1301 or visit the official website by clicking here.