Kelsall Hill BE90

Today Pete and I completed our second BE90 event, at Kelsall Hill. Today has been a day of mixed fortunes, but on the whole I am very pleased with the improvement Pete has made in such a short time in the croos country.

We had a very early start as we were the second to go in our section, with our dressage being at 8.06am. Pete was a little uptight warming up and unfortunately it didnt get much better in the test! Despite usually being very un-spooky usually, he took a dislike to the judges car and for the first half of the test he was very tense. He improved as the test went on to score 37.5 and gaining the comment 'a varied test' from the judge!

Onto the showjumping, and although it was much smaller than we are used to jumping, I was worried that Pete would not try and knock some down! He got a bit stressed in the warm up today and decided to run sideways then backwards until I could calm him down. Im not sure what upset him but he is very sensitive so the best way of dealing with it is to give him time and walk him round to allow him to settle then I took him in the ring. He jumped well although Hhe did give two fences a tap but luckily the poles stayed in place to give us a clear round.to the

Onto the cross country, which was a beautifully built course. I had decided to go the direct routes at the trackhener and corner if all was going well. After a little paddy in the start box when Pete again decided to run backwards, we set off.

He felt much more confident over the first part of the course, and flew the trackhener which I was pleased about. He was fantastic through the water this time, had barely a hesitation, and was straight as a dye over the corner. As we headed toward home he jumped the large hedge really well and onto the last question on the course, a hanging log down a dip and over an open ditch. I steadied up to jump the log to give him time to see the ditch so it didnt take him by surprise. Despite my best effort, he saw the ditch 3 strides out and dived to the left giving us 20 penalties right at the end of the course :( he jumped it on the second attempt and finished confidently. I was a little disappointed although he was much, much more confident than our first cross country at Bold in August.

So all in all, a good day. That was the last event of the season so next year hopefully we can built on our experience and become more competitive!

WE ARE OFF TO THE NATIONAL AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIPS!!

Today I achieved an ambition by qualifying for the Amateur Championships at Aintree in November.

We went to Maelor to jump our 2nd round today. Pete and I were last to go, and I must admit this is not one of my favourite venues as it is quite a narrow arena and I find it difficult to get into a nice rythmn round the course.

The first round was a tricky course with unusual turns, set at 1.05m. Pete tried hard in the first round and went clear to join 15 others. This meant that with 12 to qualify for the final, 4 horses would miss out. Fortunately we were last to go in the jump off so I had chance to see how the others were going.

There was not too many clears so I decided to gamble on a steady clear as I knew this would be enough for us to take a qualifying place. Luckily, Pete tried hard again and left all the fences up. We finished 6th to easily go through to the final. I was over the moon with him!!

As an added bonus we won 2 lovely rossetes and £15 prize money. The most important thing is the ticket to the final which is held at the end of November at one of my favourite venues, Aintree Equestrian Centre. This gives us a real focus with points to work on before the final. I'm hoping to afford some lessons to improve our jump off turns in the next few weeks as the Finals get very competitive! This means we do not need to attend the other second round qualifier at Bold Heath at the end of October.

Next week we look forward to our next Event together at Kelsall Hill BE 90, so this week its back to focusing on dressage to improve his scores!