April week 4

 2006

This week was very full with horse trials, and started with a pre novice outing at Milton Keynes.
 It was a day for the students really, with Ellen taking Storm, Paul with Balloo, Tig with Topic and Tanya with Polly.
The day was uneventful, except fore the fact that Tig very nearly missed her dressage because she got stuck in traffic on the way to meet everyone at the event!
Despite only having 5 minutes warm up she did very well and finished 5th.
Paul had a good day on Balloo, just having one pole down and a very good  clear x-country.
Storm was a good boy with Ellen, and went clear show jumping, and despite 2 silly run outs on the x-country, finished with his owner beaming.
Polly was a star again this time out and was double clear to finish 6th.

            Not really stopping to take a breath we came back from the event and had to immediately pack the box in preparation for Ballygraffan CIC in Ireland.
We left on Wednesday morning with Johnny and Brandy for the one star and Lauren and Tig taking Louie, Delphi and Jack for the two star. Mark’s mum has been the TD at this event and told us what a nice one it was so we took her advice and were not disappointed. It was a lovely event and everyone was very welcoming.

            We were stabled just off site the actual event, but it was a very easy week, with us never having to leave before 9:30 a.m.
On Thursday, all the horses did their dressage except for Brandy. They all put in good tests, with Johnny lying 12th on 57.
 

Delphi

Jack

The girls were a but disappointed with their dressage scores, with lots of improvements having been made from the last attempt, but were not lying badly at all with Louie on 63.9, Jack on 65 and Delphi on 65.9.

On Friday, Brandy did his dressage, doing a very nice test to get a 55.
Then all the ponies did their show jumping.

Louie

Jack


It was a very good day, with every horse leaving the poles up! Johnny did get 2 time penalties, but the time for both the one and two star was very tight.

So it was all smiles going into x-country day, with the one star running before the two star. Johnny was our trail blazer, and did a great round, with .8 time penalties. Brandy was also a superstar, going clear in the time.
They ended up doing very well, with Brandy finishing 4th and Johnny 10th, with Brandy also getting a prize for being closest to the optimum time.

Brandy

            Delphi was the first out in the two star of our lot, and she flew around, not really batting an eyelid at anything, she was the first horse inside the time in the two star and one of only 3 in total!
Jack did a very good clear, being far bolder than he had been in the past, and getting just 9.6 time penalties.
Louie was a good boy until a step up from a water where he spooked and ran sideways, and then at a bank into space three quarters of the way around the course didn’t want to go down and was eliminated. Lauren is not up to her full fitness yet, and a big part of Louie’s x-country round can be put to her not being 100% yet. So it wasn’t the end of the world and Delphi was 7th, and Jack 17th, so it wasn’t all bad news by any means!

            The event finished on Saturday, but Sunday was Lauren’s birthday, so we decided to stay the night Saturday night and Lauren and Tig headed out for a night on the town in Belfast before we left at 7 on Sunday morning.
We left with no problems, although the girls went very quickly to sleep  and stayed quiet for the whole journey home!