So excited to announce that Jasper and I have been selected to compete in the FEI Junior European Championships hosted by Austria this July. This is the best piece of news I have ever had and I can't say how proud I am that I will be representing Great Britain for the fourth time. This is going to be Jaspers first international competition and there is so much to organise and plan! There is no greater honour than to represent your country in the sport you live and breathe and words cannot des...
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Watching all that polo yesterday has turned Jasper into a marathon star! We won the marathon and had one of the best scores out of the whole event! We have done a lot of fittening work with him recently which meant the marathon seemed easy to him. We had some of the fastest times and he finished feeling like he would go round again. At the halt he had his Horse Quencher and has a heart rate of just 52 which was great. After that fabulous result we finished 2nd overall, with enough people in t...
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Dressage went well today after the ever scary standing presentation. The going was far heavier than I had anticipated and I was pleased with another score of 57 and 48/50 in both phases respecitvely. However the best part of today is our fantastic double clear in the cones. I was really annoyed with the time penalties I had last time at Ashfields and was determined not to have any today. I also kept trying to remind myself I had driven far more technical courses than this one and we didn't to...
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Had a bit of a suprise when I got home from school yesterday as Jasper had changed colour! Mum had finally got round to clipping him and much as I hate to admit it I am very impressed with how neat a job she has done.
Having spent the past week removing all the mud from Ashfields from all our kit and loading everything back up we actually did leave as soon as I got home from school. Hurray! The journey was stressful as trying to find the right gate to enter the Great Park and towing a trailer...
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Today was the final day of Ashfields National and we were the first driver in the arena this morning; an experience I always find nerve wracking. Jasper was fab today and we had a great clear with just a smidgen of time penalties. That is the annoying thing about going first is you have no idea how tight you are going to be on time, but oh well, nothing I can do about it. I was really chuffed with this until the judges told me I was eliminated! My heart just sank. They told me I had not drive...
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Mud mud glorious mud! Todays marathon was shortened drastically to try and make it fairer for the horses, with extra time and slower speeds to make. This was a good decision as it saved the horses for the obstacles which included a real tank in honour of this years charity, Help4Heroes. Luckily a tank is nothing unusual for us, living where we do. Infact I walked past it about 5 times yesterday and didn't even see it! Jasper was on FIRE today storming round, so proud of him and really pleased...
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As we are at a National event we are here for three days which means I am missing school today. Oh well, will worry about that later! Our Dressage went brilliantly today with a score of 57, which is well under the 65 target (again!) and the best in the class! As predicted all my cleaning was pointless as just walking from the lorry park ruined all my hard work. Luckily the presentation judge was very understanding. Spent the rest of today walking incredibly muddy obstacles, which the organise...
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Today we left for Ashfields as soon as I got home from school and being better organised then last time only left an hour later than planned so we actually arrived in the daylight to set up. Our friend Kate texted us on the way to warn us how muddy it is here. As we were only here 2 weeks ago and it was fairly muddy then, I thought she was probably making a fuss about nothing, until we actually got here and saw the true extent of the mud. It looks more like I've accidently stumbled into Glast...
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