We had a great outing at Rackham last weekend with Milli competing in the 5yo qualifier. It was our first time at Rackham BE Horse Trials and we will definitely be returning as it was a lovely event with great set up and a lovely team behind it all!

My new way of riding Milli on the flat since meeting a German instructor that a friend of my mum knew at Little Downham is really working and she did a much more consistent test, picking up promising comments from the judges and was scored a mark 35.0.

On to the SJ and it seemed a very straight forward course but there were very few clears which was baffling most of us! Milli jumped a super round but we did pick up 4 faults unfortunately at a long related distance where she didn't quite snap up quick enough in front.....hopefully she will have learnt from this though.

Compared to the XC at Little Downham, Rackham seemed very easy and straight
forward but I reminded myself not to forget that Milli is only a baby so to still ride nice and positive. She flew round and we're really getting the hang of running at the right speed XC as we very the exact optimum time!!

We finished on 39 penalties for 8th place! I was pleased with this as it is only her 3rd run at BE 100 level!! I have to admit though when I got hope and re-looked at the results and noticed without our little mistake SJ we would have been 2nd so our 4 faults SJ cost us qualification.....how frustrating!!

To view more pictures and a video from our day at Rackham please Click Here to be taken to Milli's Gallery page.....

SG Eventing
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Keep Calm & Canter On

Sorry for the lack of Blogs recently.....there has been so much going on at the SG Eventing headquarters and many more exciting things ahead! We had a great few days away competing with Roxie and Milli at Little Downham Horse Trials at the end of May, Sophie and Charlotte had a great time out competing at two local shows as well as Aero doing very well in his second ever event.....

We had a super start with Roxie competing in the Intermediate on Friday. She did a nice dressage test but she now knows Intermediate test 117 too well so pre-empts the next move as she knows what's coming! We finished about mid field so not too bad for our second attempt at intermediate! We scored 41.4 in the dressage, Roxie was soooooo excited to be
out eventing again that's for sure!!

We had an unlucky 3 down SJ which wasn't bad compared to the rest but again Roxie was over excited and kept leaping in front of the fences and they were HUGE!!! It didn't help that we had to wait quite a whlie in the collecting ring as they were slightly behind which got her a bit over excited, especially as the XC ran round the SJ ring!!!

 XC was ENORMOUS too and sooooo technical! We had a run out at the most
influential fence on the course which was a corner and then I circled before re
approaching to the alternative so was given two run outs!! She jumped everything else foot perfect though and the drop jump into the second water was massive!!! We picked up 15.6 time faults, which compared to others i my section wasn't that many at all so without our problem / circles we probably would have been very near the time which is always good to know. We finished in 20th position which isn't great but it is such a huge step up to Intermediate level and we are learning something new every time out at this level :)

We got them all settled in their stables for the night and popped to the local pub which was owned by one of my mums friends whom she hadn't seen for over 20 year so was lovely to catch up!!

We had another great day at Little Downham on the saturday.....Milli was
competing in her first 5 year old qualifier. She did what we thought was a cracking test but the judge didn't agree scoring her 42!?!

She then jumped super SJ with just one very unlucky fence down (there were only 3 clears in the whole arena!) She is making the courses feel like they are 2'0'' courses.....if eventing does not turn out to be her thing then she will be a great SJ horse!

The XC was next and it as going to be a big ask for Milli as it was big and technical for a BE100 and with her being only 5 I was a little nervous! I needn't have been though, she flew XC, clear inside the time and it was a big test for her so mum and I were very chuffed! We even picked up lovely comments from the commentator on how bold she was and making it look easy!!

After i'd finished with Milli my mums friend introduced me to a well known german dressage trainer who had watched Milli's test and told me she was working very well from behind but just needed to life her shoulders up higher in front to get the better marks. So I have come away with lots of things to work on to improve our dressage marks as although she works well for a baby, compared to some of these warmbloods she not quite there just yet. We finished just out of the top 10 in 13th place so this was a good end to a nice few days away with my girlies!

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We had another very successful weekend out competing for Team Gadd on the 9th June with two of us out eventing and the other one out dressage-ing with one of my Clients.

Charlotte and I were competing in a PC ODE at Walton-on-the-Hill and Charley and Todd did a super dressage, 4 faults SJ and picked up a few time faults XC which put them just out of the placings but we were very pleased with how she did as this was their first run around a BE90 track!!

 
Aero moved up a level to at this event and was doing his first BE80 and he was super! We got 36.7 in the dressage and then went on to jump a super double clear inside the time to finish in 3rd place.....not bad for
his second ever event!

Huge congratulations go to Lottie Louette riding Theodore IV, who are one of my clients, as they won both the Prelim and Novice classes they did with great %'s too!

We also have some very exciting changes happening here so keep checking back to find out how things are all going.....

So, until next time,
SG Eventing
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Keep Calm & Canter On