​I had a long weekend, with Friday off work which was nice, although it was a busy day with shopping and competing at the Kent County Show.  I had been asked to ride a young horse belonging to Mrs Marietta Fox-Pitt in the Young Sport Horse Show class. Sandy is a 4 year old race horse who raced for the first time last year and is getting her career of to a great start with good placings. We took her to Kent County so she could gain a bit more competition experience. To start with she found it all incredibly exciting and performed quite a few acrobatic displays.....good job I'd put my 'sticky bum' jods in, keeping me stuck to the saddle thankfully! As the class went on though she began to settle and performed a nice individual show. Sandy did a very nice trot up for the judge.....I think I looked quite entertaining at this point 'sprinting' along next to her! By the end, Sandy was standing quietly in the line showing how much she had learnt from the whole experience. We finished in 4th place and received lovely positive comments from the judge and had she behaved slightly better she would have been much higher up the placings which was nice to hear. We were all very pleased with how she did though. :)

​Saturday was a day at home, getting Roxie and Milli ready for the Riding Club Area showjumping Qualifier at Felbridge the next day. This was a competition I was very much looking forward to, more so on Roxie's side as this was her first competition back out jumping since our fall which was two years ago.....how time flies.

​Roxie and Milli haven't been out to a competition together since our very long day at Tweseldown back in June 2014, where poor Milli ending up standing on the box for some time whilst Roxie was being looked at and stabilised at Bell Equine! Anyway, back to the competition at Felbridge, and Roxie was first to jump. We were doing the senior jumping and style qualifier, where you have to do a short show before hand to show the judges a bit of trot and canter on both reins before they ring the bell and you can begin to jump your round. As I was travelling there it started raining which made me slightly anxious as Roxie is still bare foot at the moment and didn't want her to slip on the grass. She felt happy on the ground in the warm up so in we went and did our individual show bit which I'm sure Roxie enjoyed and then began jumping our round. The turn from fence 1 to 2 was very tight and we had a bit of a near miss and slipped as we made the turn. Roxie recovered very well and went on to jump a really good round and CLEAR! It wasn't very big, only 85cm but with Roxie's injury to her knee I know she isn't going to go out and do what she did before hand so my main aim for her now is to take her out and enjoy doing what she is still able to do.

​We had to wait a little while for the scores to go up and when I looked they were all very tight with marks ranging from 66 to 70! I was over the moon when our score of 82 went up, Roxie had won!!  This means we have qualified for the Riding Club National Championships in September which is rather exciting! For more pictures and a video please Click Here!

Following the prize giving Milli was next and she wasn't the usual Milli that was for sure! I'm not sure if it was the excitement of being out with Roxie that got the better of her or going somewhere new as she hasn't jumped a Felbridge since she was 4 years old and the main ring is lower than the ground around it, with a big lake type bit in the middle so it can be quite daunting. Milli just got a bit anxious and felt like a four year old again! Possibly because she hasn't been out competing for the last year, so I have now decided to back off with the bigger classes and take her out to jump some Discovery height classes so she finds it easy and enjoys it.

​SG Equestrian
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***Keep Calm & Canter On***​​

The first class I did was the Discovery and on entering the arena Milli was a bit spooked by the big pillars you walk through to enter the arena plus there was a lot for the horses to look at and although Milli has competed at International BE events, thinking about it she hasn't had much experience in smaller arenas, especially were there is lots going on around the arena.....worth noting when ever we go somewhere new. Putting this aside, we started our round and she was going great guns, a bit too forward really as she took off a stride early for fence 4, spooked which resulted in her chipping in one tiny stride! As I had already gone forward slightly, as she chipped in another stride she then sent me flying - literally!! I came down on her neck / head as we landed and Milli being cheeky Milli, very helpfully 'not' put her head down on the landing depositing me on the ground in front of her! As i got up and looked at her face i'm sure she would have been laughing out loud if she could! All the years I've been riding, i think this has to be the first time i have ever been 'jumped' off! ​

Putting this behind us we went back in the arena to jump the 1m05 class and she jumped a super stylish double clear to finish in 5th place. There was one turn which we didn't do which cost us a few places but as it was only her second competition back out jumping in almost a year it is more important to me that we jump some good rounds at this stage, any prize money is always a bonus though!
​Please Click Here to view more pictures as well as a video of our round. (unfortunately there was nobody there to video my involuntary dismount in the Discovery class!)

I have a quiet weekend on the competition front with the horses this weekend as it is my boyfriends birthday and my sisters 18th birthday on Saturday so we are having a BBQ / pool party - fingers crossed the sun shows up!

Next Friday I will competing at the Kent County Show on a mare called Sandy who is a beautiful roan / grey racehorse owned by Marietta Fox-Pitt. We are doing a young sport horse class which I am very looking forward too.

Then next Sunday we have the riding club area 10 SJ qualifier for the national championships which I have two horses entered for, but am not entirely sure who i'm taking yet! 

I hope you have a lovely weekend and catch up soon!

SG Equestrian
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Keep Calm & Canter On***