Fan favourite Ivar Gooden made his eventing comeback at the Eventing Spring Carnival at Thoresby Park after nearly two years out with injury – and went home with a rosette.
Ivar Gooden, known fondly as “Sir Charles”, is one of the world’s top five-star cross-country horses, with a perfect top-level record of six jumping clears from six starts.
The now 16-year-old gelding sustained a leg injury in June 2021 and has been carefully managed in his return to work by rider Imogen King (née Murray) and her team at MS Eventing.
He has been in the ribbons showjumping this year, and returned to eventing with an open intermediate run at Thoresby on Saturday (1 April), finishing third with a double jumping clear and a steady spin across country.
“It’s just like putting a pair of old slippers on,” Imogen told H&H. “To think I’ve not ridden him for nearly two years on a cross-country course, he just feels like he’s never been away.
“He’s feeling good and he’s very happy to be back out. He loves it.”
Sir Charles, who is owned by Aivar Ward and the M.S. Team, can be sharp, but was on his best behaviour this weekend.
“I think he was so amazed at being allowed to go to an event that he didn’t want to be naughty,” said Imogen, with a laugh.
“We’re just going to see how he’s going. He hasn’t got a big plan. We’re just happy to have him back doing something like this. His injury at the time was quite severe, so we didn’t know if he would be able to come back.
“Plan A at the moment is just enjoy him and see how he goes. If he’s looking good, then a five-star might be on the cards and if he’s not going to be up to that then we’ll just enjoy him and he’ll do what he does.”
Imogen credited Stuart Buntine and his team of doing a “fantastic job” with the ground and the courses, which she described as hitting the balance of “asking enough questions, but fair for the horses”.
“I was umming and ahhing as the weather on Friday was not ideal. I thought, ‘well I’ll put him on the lorry, walk the course when we get there and see what it’s like’,” she said.
“I walked the course and thought the team had done a really good job. He was first to go in the showjumping and first to go cross-country of the whole day, so he had beautiful fresh ground and so I decided to run him. It felt really good out there.
“Give it another two weeks and we’ll all be moaning it’s too firm!”
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