Last Events Of The Season

Well the last event for 2017 is over and we are now heading back up the M5 from a ODE for the final time this year.

We have had three full days of competing, Friday seeing us up at Norton Disney with the young horses. They were all good boys, clear cross country and good show jump rounds. The Norton Disney ground is amazing as it takes rain very well and again the course was educational. All the 5-year-olds coped very well, running at Novice for their last run. Mentally they were well able to cope with the more technical lines and it will be nice to start next year with them as 6-year-olds settled into working at novice level.

The night before heading up to Norton Disney the weather forecast wasn’t great but in the end it was nice and a good day to compete. The only drama for me was that I had 5 babies and didn’t do my first dressage test till 12:30 – with the nights closing in it was all I could do to get them done cross country before it was too dark, so then it was a late night home on Friday followed by a 4:00 leave on Saturday morning to make a 9:00 dressage at Aldon.

We had Drax and Tonto going down to Aldon for the CIC**. The weather we didn’t get at Norton Disney we certainly got at Aldon as it was extremely wet and windy. Drax did his best test of the year, a 55, and Tonto went nicely again for a 49 so it was a pleasing result for both of them.

It was a mud bath everywhere but the show jumping ground held up quite well, Drax just having the one down and Tonto doing a nice clear. The cross country was a little bit hard because of the ground, and quite hard to get the time – the course was fine but the ground certainly was tiring for them. Unfortunately Drax had a run out at a corner then Tonto jumped a nice clear and was bang on the optimum time.

Tonto eventually ended up finishing 3rd by not even a point so along with his Oasby win we are all very proud of our coloured pony. It was great for Carol and Veronica to see him run this weekend as unfortunately they missed his great result at Oasby.

All in all Drax has started to show improvement which is a relief for me and nice for him. Now it is time for some horse to have a break and the team to have some holidays. After a little bit of time I’m sure I will be itching to get the horses ready to go for next season.

Thanks must go to all the staff and the owners for supporting us in what we do but the biggest thanks must go to my wife Jenny who works harder than any of us to keep the show on the road.

Until next time,

Cheers

Bill

Posted 22nd October

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