Borde Hill 25^th -26^th May 2014

Another local event, Borde Hill is less than an hour away, an event that is part of the SEEL of which I am a committee member. This event is hugely popular with well-built and varied courses that are a great indicator of whether your horse is ready to move up to the next level. It is generously supported and has a fantastic team of helpers and organisers.

With the sun shining and three horses on board we had a very leisurely start to the day, with Wesley (Lucky Turn) doing a nice dressage test, it is only his second time out this year and I would of liked him to of been a little bit more settled in his test, but he performed well to get a mark of 25.5 which gave him a good lead in his section. Unfortunately he just didn’t try as hard as he could in the show jumping and I felt he let himself down, though the ground was causing a lot of problems, the going was chopped up and the course very undulating. As always he gave me a superb ride cross country in slightly difficult ground in places and finished 4^th.

Northern Territory (NT) was quite excited to be out competing, the cross country course runs alongside the dressage warm up so we spent ten minutes just yeehaaing – amused to see other people’s faces when they see us warm up,  NT going round head up and remembering he was once a racehorse! Luckily being a stallion he soon runs out of oomph and he settled well and did a good test to give him a mark 25.5 in his arena. Again the undulating sj caught him out for an unfortunate two fences down, but he performed well cross country and felt like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. He finished a creditable 5^th.

Gloris Flight was in the same section as Wesley and received a mark of 30.5 for his dressage, after having a day where the poles were falling I was pleased with finishing the day on a nice double clear inside the time to finish 2^nd.

A day eventing in the sunshine, all the ponies in the ribbons and taking home prize money, what more can I ask for, I love my job!

What a difference 12 hours makes, I returned to a very wet and soggy Borde Hill, lorries were being towed in, which is always a very bad sign, and it rained and it rained! I walked the course in the rain, I rode First Impression IV, Bruce in the pouring rain in very difficult conditions to score a very respectable score of 24.5 in the dressage. The show jumping was causing huge amounts of trouble, fences falling, the ground very wet and holding in places, slippery in others and the undulating ground, plus the ground conditions made life very difficult for everybody. We lowered four poles but I was pleased that he had tried in conditions he had never experienced before. By the time I went cross country the conditions had got worse, people were withdrawing and the score boards had many DNF written alongside people’s names. I decide to take Bruce cross country, after all we might have conditions like this in years to come when it is an event when it really matters, plus you would hunt in worse conditions. I was glad I made that decision and except for an unfortunate run out at fence 6B a corner off a four stride curve downhill he jumped well and more importantly coped well and finished having learnt another life experience. Not a day for ribbons but we completed and returned back to base with a lot of wet soggy, dirty tack to clean!.