[RC] Trens Tesmen (Translation: Trans Tasman) Part 4 - Jay Randle
The Pressure Cooker continues.
Sonya's big grey came in looking great.There was a question over it's CRI though.She had to represent but no one was at all worried.Also Ady's mount showed some signs of being a little uncomfortable after vetting so she was going to give the horse a little more time to relax before going out again just to be on the safe side.This meant that Ady's day went from competition to chasing a completion. Linda's horse had been very hot during the first leg and gave her quite a hard time.She had given the horse some extra time in the hold to settle before heading off on the 2nd leg.This began an unfortunate chain of events as once on the 2nd leg she broke a stirrup and combined with a hot horse made it difficult to say the least for her.There is little provision on that track for any rescue mission and it took a long time to get a new stirrup to her.She too was aiming now at a completion and would struggle to finish the ride before the cut off time. Sonya's big grey was deemed unfit to continue at her represent being pulled on a panel for metabolics.Now I personally had a little bit of a hard time trying to work out what exactly happened and so did the rest of the team as well as Sonya herself.The horse looked great,was eating and drinking but the vets decided that the CRI was no good.A rather confusing ruling at the time and still a mystery really.Bad luck for Sonya but she took it extremely well.A real credit to herself and the team.So the first of the fellowship falls in NZ.Perhaps we can now call Sonya "Boromir" All 4 of the Kiwi horses were still going and we had only 3 team members left.Trouble starts to brew and the worry begins. You must take into consideration that we were there to hand back sound,healthy horses but it was also a serious competition.We wanted a win and so did the Kiwis.They wanted it badly.Who wants to be beaten on their home turf?No one likes beating Australia more than the Kiwis so it was pretty tense at times and tactics were flying around everywhere.Tarni was still at the front,Talea was not far behind and Ady was mid field.The Kiwis were pushing hard and their focus was definately on Tarni trying to draw her into over doing her horse.We knew that they wanted to take her out hard and apply pressure to her mind and her horse hoping for a mistake but she held her nerve even when she lost a shoe.She hopped off and ran a few hills while making up time on the soft flat parts.The ground is so soft that shoes aren't really needed in many spots of that track.The Kiwi's were pretty sure they had Tarni beat after the shoe went flying but she came in seconds behind the leader with a great chance of beating them to strapping. We went in 1st to vet but Rios decided to push me around a bit just as the heartrate was being taken.He pulsed over with a head toss and we had to go around again.We could have walked straight in again but I certainly didn't want to be the one who made the decision to go early and have the possibility of vetting Tarni out so I took 4 minutes to be sure that Rios got through.He did and Tarni was 4 minutes behind at the start of the last leg. The 2 last legs were both 20k.Tarni was 4 minutes back now and it was very unlikely that she would push her horse that much to catch.What she needed to do was stay in the leaders mirrors and make him err in judgement.As Tarni left on the last Rios took off like a horse posessed.A gallop out of the gates after the lead horse.What a fantastic horse to still be going hard after 3 legs. Talea was still cracking along beautifully and none of us doubted that she would finish and finish strongly.We were now hoping that the Kiwis came unstuck somehow. And so the ray of light!One of the Kiwi horses did not want to go out.I mean really didn't want to go.The rider had to dismount and lead him down the road for a km before mounting again and trying to get him going.He reluctantly headed across the paddock on the last and we thought that Ady would probably pick her up and get past.Talea was probably not in a position to catch the 2nd youth Kiwi but if she finished there was always a chance that the Kiwi would fall at the end. Linda had come home now and unfortunately did not have enough time to do the last leg so she did the the only thing she could and withdrew.Not a great day for Linda and we all felt for her. While everything else was going on Lisa Stoffel,the quiet achiever, was still moving along nicely on her dark dappled grey.Always looking great in vetting and looking good for another finisher.Although not chasing for a place she was as happy as larry and riding in NZ wearing the green and gold.What a fantastic thing to achieve.Lisa will go a long way in this sport and should be congatulated for her proffessionalism and dedication to the sport. So it comes to the finish.It was a nailbiter right down to the wire.A full Kiwi team heading to the last gate and 3 Aussies still in the hunt.Tarni chasing the lead horse,Talea chasing the second placed Kiwi,Ady chasing the other 2.Could you ask for a better script. So to the finish G
