Plantation Field update from Eric Bull

Mike Etherington-Smith and Eric Bull at Plantation Field. Photo by Katie Walker

It’s been a busy start to the spring, with lots of planning going on. About a month ago we walked around Plantation Field with Mike Etherington-Smith, who’s taking over as course designer after Denis Glaccum. Mike planned a new 3* track and it starts and ends in a different spot and uses the terrain in a different way. It feels like a good track; it’s not an easy piece of property, because it can be steep in places, but I think he did a good job of winding the track up and down and back up. Bringing in a new designer always brings new energy and new ideas.

I think the big emphasis this year is to reseed and roll the footing and get a really good galloping track without the bumps and issues people have complained about in the past. Phillip Dutton commented the other day that this needs to be as good as any European track and I think that’s the standard we’re aiming for. Honestly, Plantation and Fair Hill are as close as anything in the US to British standards – both have good topsoil and a fair bit of rainfall. It’s not easy to turn something like the Sandhills of NC into “European” type footing, but up here we’re pretty close.

Jamie Hicks is committed to doing all the tractor work; he rolled the track all day after it rained, which takes all the bumps and rolls out of it. It’s a 170 horsepower tractor and the roller weighs ten to fourteen thousand pounds – this isn’t gardening, it’s big stuff!

As far as jumps go, there’s going to be quite a bit to build for the one, two and three-stars. Right now we have the track, a new water jump and a ditch figured out. Mike E-S is coming over again in May or June, once the dirt work is done, to talk about what specific fences look like, what we have and what we need. It’s a good way to do it because it’s a little hard for all of us to get our heads wrapped around everything at once. It’s a nice luxury to take it in steps.

I’ve been there all week setting up the basic horse trials stuff, putting out portables, repairing anything that’s broken and making sure everything is up to height and up to standard, and I’ll be there again this weekend while they event takes place.

-Eric