Well my darling Sprout surpassed all expectations by placing 9th in his first CCI3* last week in France. He performed the best test of his life to score 54, although a little green in places his mind set was faultless and he did all the movements to the best of his ability in considerable atmosphere, an achievement in itself. We can now get braver and aim for higher marks with this stage of his development complete.
Cross country day was a long one. We didn't run until 5.11pm. The dear boy scorched around an incredibly testing track to finish 4th fastest, just one second over the optimum, which moved us into 8th place. However the drama didn't end as we crossed the finish line, poor Sprout suffered a bout of heat stroke and took a good 20 mins to cool down and regain his composure after finishing. An incredible team of experts from all around the world were there to assist in the process, thankfully resulting in no lasting ill effects. A worrying time for us all, especially as he'd shown no sign of it during his run, crossed the line full of beans and then a minute or so later became unwell.
His true grit, bravery and brilliance was on show for all to see on Sunday when he trotted up as fresh and a daisy and bounced around a testing show jumping course giving the fences feet to spare. Unluckily for Sprout I didn't quite get him balanced enough before the second last which he just rubbed to end with 4 faults, but a faultless performance by him resulted in a well deserved 9th ribbon and subsequent Badminton qualification for next year.
I was lucky enough to travel with fellow kiwi's Tim Price and Jonelle Richards who both had successful weekends and thanks to their hospitality and great driving skills I had the energy to arrive home on Monday morning at 9am and leave again at 10am for two days dressage training with Andrew Fletcher, and test riding and jump training with Gill Watson. Poor Gill had a nasty scare with her Ma being taken ill whilst Gill was helping me in France, thankfully all was well on her emergency return.
The home team have done an incredible job looking after Luke, Q and Willy in readiness for their three day events, so we're all set for Borde Hill on Monday and then to set sail for Bramham on Tuesday with three horses, via the gallops!
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