BORDE HILL    

One of our closest events and a pretty quiet weekend for us, with only Jamesson running on the first day. This lovely 10yo ex-racehorse has taken to his new job amazingly well, although he still hasn’t quite mastered the Zen-like mental attitude required for dressage! However this time was a huge improvement, help by the early times, before any loudspeakers or xc started and we earned a mark of 29, an improvement of 10 marks on his previous two outings! The showjumping at Borde Hill is always challenging, built on a considerable slope, however today it posed no problems for James and he jumped a lovely clear. The xc phase has come very naturally to him, as with many ex-racehorses, and today was no exception. Even the BE90 track at Borde Hill is quite stiff but James pinged around it with no problems whatsoever, just adding 5.2 time penalties. At this level we have to run HC, but if competitive then he would have been placed 4^th. James will now go to Firle for one more 90 run after which I hope he will be ready to step up to the BE100.

Sunday was again a relatively quiet day, with only Burntwood Sorrel (Ginger) and Northern Territory (NT) competing in the BE100. Ginger got things off to a good start with a dressage score of 26, taking an early lead in section H. The undulations in the showjumping however proved a little troublesome for us, resulting in 2 fences down. The xc phase started really rather enthusiastically, but by fence 6 he had started to settle and so I allowed him to just continue in a rather relaxed manner, rather than chasing the optimum time which on this occasion was proving difficult to achieve. This meant that we clocked up 11.6 time faults, dropping us down to 11^th place, that most irritating of placings in which to finish!

NT’s day went in a very similar manner to Gingers’. A reasonable dressage test mark of 30.5 was far from his best but I was pleased with his efforts nonetheless. The showjumping is still not quite back on track yet and he had a most un-characteristic 12 faults. Across country however he felt like a different horse, giving me one of the best rides I have ever had on him, for the first time he towed me out of the start box and then really felt as if he enjoyed every minute of his round, definitely putting his fall at BCA behind him. 3.2 time faults on this day was nothing to be ashamed of although we finished well out of the money in 15^th.

Today was also the final day for my groom Shannon Lunt, who has decided that the life of an event groom is not for her. We wish her all the best and I am sure that come winter we will all be envious of her, sitting in a warm, dry office! However it does mean that we are on the hunt for a new event groom. Preferably looking to start in December/January time. Any applicants absolutely must have previous experience of working with competition horses, super high standards of turnout, be just a little bit mad and preferably have a liking for Haribo and cake!