September 2019

With Burghley done and dusted for another year it was on to another event.

Next stop was the last 'little Gatcombe' ever. Sadly gatcombe will no longer be running their March adn September events so it was great to be riding there with two nice horses. Both COOLEY LEGALAND aka Eddie and CAPTAIN FUTURE aka Captain were competing in the OI.

Eddie was having his last run before his first 4*S at Blenhiem in a couple of weeks. He produced a lovely test to score 30.7 and went on to jump a nice double clear adding 9.6 time faults to finish in 6th place. The time has always been notoriously tight at Gatcombe but I was delighted to have had such a confident run before Blenhiem. Next was Captain and this again was a last run, but this time my last run on him. We have with a heavy heart decided to lease him so I wanted to enjoy riding him today. He too scored 30.7 in the dressage, two fences down SJ but he actually jumped a super round and then as per usual an easy clear XC. He is a super horse, so genuine and loves his job, so he can now use his experience to give someone else a fun few years.

Then it was time to get home, a few days off for Eddie and one last gallop and then packing the lorry for Blenhiem.

Molly Fisher, one of Eddies owners was having her first experience of owning a horse at this level and what an event to start at, Blenhiem is such a beautiful place and amazing place to be a rider and an owner, Lucy his other owner is very experienced at this level as she is a part owner of my beatiful WII LIMBO aka Woody was we also had competing here in the 4*L after re routing from Burghley.

We had a great start with both horses. Woody flew through the trot up, right literally we was wild, and then he went on to produce one of his best tests, sadly it didnt quite score how we had hoped, but still very creditable 31.1 to lie in the top quarter. Eddie coped really well with the atmosphere and the arena and the extra movements in the test, a couple of little errors but overall we were all delighted with a score of 34.3.

We had a day off on Friday to walk the courses, and I also did one of my public course walks thathave been veyr popular the last couple of years at Burghley, so I thought we would start doing them at Blenhiem aswell.

So Saturday came which was XC day for Woody and SJ day for Eddie. Woody was really up for it and feeling fantastic, he flew around just picking up a handful of times faults, it was great to run him around the 4*L rather than 5*L as I felt it was all very easy for him and we just went out and had a great time. He then went back to rest whilst we got Eddie ready for SJ, a nice course but up to height and lots to look at, and Eddie again coped well, 2 fences fell which I feel is a good preformance for a horse moving up a level and the whole team were pleased with him. 

Sunday morning, we had to make the sad decision to withdraw Woody, he was still a little sore in his back and we just didnt feel the need to push him to SJ, he had been so fantastic on sautrday for the XC and didnt need the competition as a qualifiication for anything, so he had a nice duvet day, whilst stablemate Eddie headed out for the biggest XC course of his career. And what a star we was, he jumped liked an exprienced horse from start to finish jumping all the direct routes. He has always been a complete machine XC, but today he really came into his own and I could not have been more proud of him.

It wa a great was to end the season with him, both horses will now have a well deserved holiday and then come out next season.