We had a rather successful weekend at Carlton Horse Trials at the end of July. It was my first time at this event and it certainly won't be my last! It truly is a lovely event, the organisers and volunteers were friendly and helpful and the setting was beautiful! Zoe Abbott joined us for the weekend as an extra pair of hands, however I'm pretty sure I probably put her off for life haha not the most relaxing way to spend your weekend off after all!
Midget and Beemer were running in the BE100 on the Saturday.
Midget did a lovely test to score 28 and lie 8th, he then unfortunately let himself down by having 3 fences down but more than made up for it with an effortless clear cross country to finish 11th.
Beemer did an improved test to score 36, he added one fence down and stormed round the cross country to finish 9th.
We returned on the Sunday with Hovis for the BE90. He did a smart test to score 33.5 and lie 6th, he then had 2 fences down show jumping but flew round the cross county to finish 16th in the normal section and 4th in the ROR class.
So we were very happy with our boys but it was very clear that our show jumping needs to be brought back up to scratch!
We then had an incredibly early start, to make the trek to Gatcombe for the Pony Club Team Showjumping with Beemer.
The first round went very well, we jumped at 9am so it was very quiet! Beemer jumped a lovely round to just have the last fence down. The team was lying 7th after the first round so we jumped our second round late afternoon . By this stage the crowds were out in force and poor Beemer got stage fright! I was very happy with him as he didn't stop or do anything naughty he just had a lot of fences down where he wasn't concentrating. He is so willing and so trainable I'm sure we can cure his stage fright haha.
We made the most of an eventing free weekend to go to Onley Grounds for some Showjumping practice!
We took Jack for his first outing and Pebbles one of our new liveries for the 70 & 80cm. Jack came 5th in the 70cm and was just a little green in the 80 but jumped fantastically for his first outing! Pebbles was 6th in the 70 & just had one pole down in the 80 to the delight of her owner!
We returned in the afternoon with the 3 big boys. Hovis jumped brilliantly in his first 1m class having a few fences down but definitely proving he has a lot more scope to come as he still made it feel easy.
Midget jumped a fab round to finish 6th and Beemer jumped a much more fluent round to just have a couple down.
Midget was abit keener in the 1.05 as he decided he definitely knew the course, but he still managed to finish 2nd haha. Beemer decided it was incredibly exciting so majorly over jumped the first fence landed and started bronking and unfortunately i didn't (Beemer did) make the turn at the boards in time so as nick put it 'it was like a bird hitting a window'! So that put an end to our day Showjumping and lucky Hovis got to miss his 1.05m debut.
We then headed to the new event Prestwold Hall with Beemer & Midget for the BE100. Midget produced an uncharacteristically tense test unsurprisingly with the Super car driving experience going on right opposite!!! He scored 41 to lie near the bottom of the section. Beemer did a surprisingly calm test to also score a disappointing 41! So we had half written the day off and that was before they both had 2 down Showjumping! However they both produced awesome clears cross country round a challenging track which was enough to move up to 7th on Beemer and 9th on Midget, so all ended well!
Next day we headed to Milton Keynes with Hovis and Monty. Hovis did a lovely test with just a couple of mistakes to score 31.5 he added one fence down in the Showjumping but unfortunately the cross country didn't quite go to plan! He jumped beautifully through the trickier combinations that I thought he would look at but picked up 2 stops at a snake parallel which looked simple but caused chaos and we didn't quite make a turn in the twisty part of the course to pick up a third stop. We were still happy with him as he is a real trier and jumped the rest of the course beautifully.
Monty was in the BE90RF, we had a good start when he did a beautiful test to score 31. However Monty had other ideas on the whole badminton thing, putting in 2 naughty stops in the Showjumping and also picked up a stop at the snake parallel on the cross country but otherwise flew round. So a rather disappointing day but both completed and we live to fight another day!
Erin Angel (Montys owner) stayed with us for a few days during and after MK and was a massive help and a fantastic groom, if only I could have kept her for longer!!
Pearl has now been sold and has set off to start her new career in endurance. Mojo is officially for sale and will be in this weeks horse and hound after a very successful cross country schooling session at Milton Keynes last weekend!
Midget and Beemer head to the Milton Keynes three day event next, Beemer is running in the open and Midget in the intermediate due to there not being enough entries for me to ride two in the open!
They will then head to Broadway for their last run which will be Beemers first novice and midgets return to Novice fingers crossed.
Hovis has now started his end of season holiday as we decided he has had enough runs for his first season eventing and he has learnt a lot, so he will have a couple of months off before coming back in for some pre season dressage, SJ & hunting.
Evie is now broken in and jumping small courses so we are very happy with her progress.
Jack and Sam will hopefully go to Onley Grounds Showjumping this weekend :-)