The season started with a bang…although it was not the kind I was hoping for!
The first event was Tweseldown and Bean Admired (Jamie), Lord Of The Owls (Shadow) and Arctic Monkey (Paddy) braved the adverse weather conditions. Jamie was in the Open Intermediate, performed an exuberant dressage test, just had the one fence down in the show jumping phase and was good cross country, despite the sandy ground making the going very deep. I always ride with the ground conditions in mind so I took it very slowly. Shadow was also in the Open Intermediate and was great in his dressage test, clear show jumping but, due to excitement caused by a tack based malfunction, one fence was missed cross country- which was a huge shame but unavoidable. Paddy was great in the Intermediate and after three nice phases finished 10th- what a good boy.
At this point, we’d just had a tack issue; but when I was 20 minutes from home, the brakes failed on the lorry. With three horses on board this was less than ideal! I managed to negotiate some fairly steep hills to get home…but the lorry smelt like it was about to catch fire and there was a substantial amount of smoke. We arrived home but as I parked the lorry, I realised that the hand brake wasn’t working either! As Laura went to unload the horses (as I had my foot firmly on the brake pedal making full use of the tiny bit of braking power I still had) I had to shout out the window that we needed to stop the lorry rolling backwards before we unloaded. Various bits of block and wood were found but, in the dark and 8pm this is not an easy task! It was a first outing to remember!
Needless to say, the next day’s competition plans were cancelled. Luckily we found an amazing mechanic who worked until 11pm to fix the lorry so I could compete on Saturday. Huge thanks to him for his valiant efforts!
On Saturday we took two new horses HHS Foracruise (Dumpy) and Les Bossons (Willow) along with Simply Sox (Sox) to Tweseldown- it was freezing cold. This was their first time out so I took them both really slowly, especially cross country. Dumpy did a 32 dressage test with a double clear to follow so I was really pleased with him. Les Bossons did a 29 dressage test, had one pole down show jumping and then, as the course had been closed for two hours earlier in the day due to a fall, the poor chap did his first cross country at dusk! He was great. We were lucky enough to swop Sox’s entry from the day that the lorry was being mended, to an entry in the Open Pre Novice section. He did a 25 dressage, double clear and came 2nd…so it was well worth asking if they could squeeze him in.
On the 20th, we went to Swalcliffe Park. This is a new event and was absolutely stunning with a beautiful cross country course. Again, we were plagued by horrific weather and, as Swalcliffe is on orange clay, the most amazing deep mud followed! This was the first event for a homebred of mine, Floating Island (Tartlet). She had one down show jumping and was a very good girl cross country although, due to the fact I was taking everything very slowly, we did incur a time penalty…she was clear though which I feel is the most important. Dumpy had a good dressage score and then a double clear. Willow did a lovely dressage test, had one down show jumping and then an unfortunate cross country for two reasons. After much deliberation, I decided to start the course. The ground was horrendous and I was very conscious that this was only his second time out so I didn’t want to frighten him and, of course, I wanted to guard against injury. Fairly soon after setting out as I pulled up as I decided it just wasn’t worth it. We loaded the horses and went home. It was only on Monday that I realised something strange had happened with the scores and he’d been given 20 penalties and 54 time faults. If I’d stayed until the end I could have queried the mark but as it is now on his permanent record there is nothing I can do. A huge shame.
All in all, despite our issues with tack, lorries and scores we had a good start to the season…I’ll keep you posted!
< BACK TO NEWS