24th October -Trailblazer dressage

Set off to norton heath for trailblazer first rounds today! First attempt to get first round Q and wasn't feeling great as the only time Ive done dressage at NH we couldnt even scrape the 58% qual score!

Anyway, Deannas been working so nicely recently and always scoring above 60% so in that sense I was hoping we should get through!! Anyway, prelim 7 was outdoors and not a great test; Deanna wasn't as forward as I like and as such not as round as she should be. Scored 59. something which I was quite disappointed with however it actually placed me around 11th out of 35 so really is was rather harsh judging I think!

Prelim 10 was a much better test, first time D's been indoors in a long long time though so she did tense up a bit! Overall dead chuffed with her, score 62% so not amazing but more than enough to get our first round qualification woop woop :)

11th October - awesome ODE!

So Im a complete wimp when it comes to competing in XC! Schooling I'll jump anything but in a comp I get proper windy!

Set off for our first ODE of the year, our 2nd ever and first in 2years haha! (do you see how Im not an eventer!!). Anyway, things started a bit badly as I didnt have time to plait! Ooops thankfully there were quite a few horses unplaited but I like to make an effort.

Didn't seem to matter to D as she do a really super dressage test, she didnt warm up that well - kept falling out thru her left shoulder naughty pony but got in the arena and she knew just what to do! Got the 2nd best score (and was only 1/2 a point off the leader!) of 33 or a 67% test!! WOOP WOOP

Onto the SJ, now it was very very small. I always think that the SJ should be bigger than the XC as at the end of the day you don't wanna try a 2.6ft XC unless your jumping 2.9ft SJ as XC. Anyhoo, the course looked fine with all fillers placed at the side bar one and thankfully D flew round clear :D

Then for the XC, I've jumped this course before and gone clear until the last fence where I fell off haha! So this year I was a bit more determined! D had a little look at fence 3, and well in all I rode terribly but she flew round and finished clear hooray!!

Long wait for the results and was really chuffed to find we'd finished 3rd!! :D I was about a minute too quick, as were quite a few people, so lots of time faults. If we had of been slower I might have snuck 2nd but anyway!

Dead chuffed with my pony! Finally feel that my XC confidence is really back after our rotational fall earlier in the year! :)

Finally dressage video :)