Magical Madness..

As the season progress the madness intensifies but thankfully with some excellent form to show for all the hard work. This week our alarms have been pre 3.30am more often than not with Andrew Fletcher dressage lessons in Leicestershire at 6am on Monday morning, Luis Alvarez show jumping clinic in Wiltshire at 9am on Tuesday morning, a show jumping show at Onley on Wednesday, Aston le Walls Intermediate on Thursday and then Chatsworth for the weekend!

My training with Andrew and Luis is funded by the New Zealand federation and feels as though their help, coupled with Gill Watson's regular input at home, is making a huge difference to the way my horses are performing.

So the jumping show at Onley saw Lyd jump a nice double clear on Missy, Little Luc had a slightly frustrating time on Ginge with him jumping three lovely rounds with the irriation that Ginge took exception to a green oxer in each round, and I rode Fish round for a nice double clear and Bonnie had the last rail in her second class.

Aston proved to be a somewhat frustrating day with Parker and Fish both doing their best ever tests, both jumping super clears show jumping and unfortunately both having hiccups on the cross country which is normally their guaranteed strong phase! I think it was to tune me up for Chatsworth.

At Chatsworth Lyd peformed brilliantly in her first FEI event on Missy to place 7th in the 1*. I took Luke and Q in the 3* and Willy in the Advanced, although the only difference was in the dressage test!! Luke did his best test to date to lie 9th, Q tried really, really hard and was slammed by the judges and Willy was rather bouncy but didn't score badly. All three boys jumped nicely in the show jumping Luke and Q had one rail and Willy a couple but it was certainly the biggest track he's ever seen. And then all three jumped lovely XC clears around a fairly meaty course. I was delighted. None of them broke any land speed records as it is their last run before Luhmuhlen or Bramham three day events but i was delighted with all of their performances.


So this morning we are unpacking and repacking in readiness to head off to France this afternoon with Sprout for the CCI 3* in Saumur.