What a great day at Goring Heath and fantastic results in a competitive section......

We had really good times for Goring Heath....dressage at 14:38 and then time to walk the XC Course before the SJ, so we had a rather leisurley start to the day, which made a nice change!

On arrival I went and got my number, and on route had a quick look at the SJ, which looked very up to height already and it was only the BE100......great!!

Once I had changed and got Roxie all tacked up we headed over to the Dressage. She warmed up really well and was remaining calm and concentrated, so over we went....Thankfully she remained calm throughout the test and we were all very pleased with it. The judge agreed with us and gave us a score of 30.0 which put us in 6th place after dressage! I was very pleased with this score as Roxie still has so much more to give and hopefully the 8's we got may turn into 9's in the near future :)

We got her untacked and the set off to walk the XC course...it was right up to height and very technical, however that was why I came here, so hopefully we would have a confident run before our first International of the 2012 season at Hambleden! BUT before XC we had to tackle the SJ, which was, like the XC very up to height........

She was jumping really well in the warm up, and after watching a few competitiors before me, we jumped a few more fences and went it. She went very green on me as we cantered around the edge and was terrified of the parrot wings at fence 7....great! Although once the commentator rung the bell she soon knucled down and concentrated and i'm incredibly pleased with how she jumped, WE JUMPED CLEAR :)

Now with a very good dressage and a clear SJ round, which there was very few off, it was all to play for! 5,4,3,2,1, Go, Good luck.....Off we set  and she jumped the first few fences really well, which got us into a lovely rythm for the skinny to drop and 4a and b, then down a very VERY steep hill to 5a and b and 6a, b, and c, the water. With these first questions out of the way we galloped on the the trakennar and skinny triple brush at 7 and 8. She continued to fly over all fences I put in front of her ad the jump I got over fence 15, a HUGE oxer over a ditch, I will dream about for years :) We jumped a superb clear XC! We did pick up just 3.6 time

faults which I think was possibly on my approach to fence 16a and b which was a corner with a three stride right curve to a skinny with trees covering your initial sight of fence b! It has caused many problems so far so we thought a few time faults is better than 20! The time was quite tight anyway, only one in my arena made it inside the time so my round was quite fast in the end. As you can see from this picturt to the left fence 'b' was quite hard too see initially!!

---

Once we had sorted Roxie out we went back over to the secretaries tent to see how the scores were looking.....I was 3rd!!!!!! My team were very pleased, but not as much as me It has taken quite a while to fully recover from my accident, and although I am still not, and never may be as I was before I am incerdibly pleased with my recovery and can't wait for the rest of the season to kick in!!

I would also like to say a HUGE thank you to all my fantastic Sponsors who are really helping so, so much! The Global Herbs supplements are helping contribute to enhancing my horses performance briliantly alongside the Hickstead Horse Feeds. I have recently begun feeding Sports Cubes from Hickstead Horse Feeds and they provide the right energy amounts neede without sending them mad!! Full recommended :)

Roxie had a lazy day in the field on Sunday, enjoying the sunshine and then in the afternoon I put her and Milli on my garden for a bit of extra grass......well, it's easier than mowing it isn't it?!?

We have a busy few weeks coming up now with combined training competition, hunter trials, our first International of the year as well as various training sessions! Talking of traiig session, I am holding a XC Clinic at Chilham Park on Friday 6th April and there are a few spaes left so if you would like to joins us, please Contact Me a.s.a.p!

Pictures and video from Goring Heath are now uploaded. Please click on the links to have a look!!

So, until next time,
X

Keep Calm & Canter On