My Diary

I teamed up with my friend Richard Jones to travel over to Boekelo on the Dutch German border. It was great not to have to do the driving for a change and although I missed my own lorry a little bit, it was a very relaxed trip!

With the draw not until after trot-up on the Wednesday afternoon, I had no clue when I would be doing dressage. All I could do was hope for a Friday slot. My luck wasn?t in and I ended up 11.30 Thursday morning, giving me a lot less time to settle him than I needed. Dick is not yet used to the far noisier and busier arenas we have here, so getting him set right before dressage is really important. The result was a very mixed test. He held well through the trot work but canter work was very tense. This was enormously frustrating as his ?homework? has been going so well, but that?s horses for you! Bring on the Winter training!

Saturday Cross Country ? just my fifth run with him due to the huge schedule disruption this year ? was FANTASTIC! All the straight routes, foot perfect bar one fence when he took off a stride early (over-enthusiasm!), a real lift for me to confirm how good he is for the future.

Unfortunately the one small error resulted in a nick on his elbow and a strained muscle, and I decided not to risk him Showjumping as although Cross Country had moved me around 30 places up the leaderboard I was not in contention for a top spot.

He was full of beans coming off the lorry and into the field on Monday afternoon, and it is a shame we now how to wait ?til next Spring to continue our campaign towards Badminton!