What a great few days we all had at Barbury International with Roxie & Milli...

Well, the day of packing was nearly done, both horses bathed and all ready, so the last thing for me to do on Wednesday was set my alarm for some silly time Thursday morning.....I don't like it when your phones says 4 hours 57 minutes until the alarm!!!

Alarm goes off and out of bed I jumped, yes I was just a little bit excited! This was the first time I had taken both Roxie and Milli out competing together and was going to be a real test for me as I have backed and produced Milli myself and retrained Roxie myself as well!

On arrival we got the off and started to get Milli ready. She was behaving really well and acting very grown up, well until we got down to the warm-up anyway! She found the warm-up very exciting and danced around bucking and bronking! What a monster!?
 

After popping a few jumps and practicing some of the movements in the test we went in and thankfully Milli, althoug only 4, knows when she has to behave and did a lovely test. She scored 15 for her dressage test which put her mid-field at this stage, which I was slightly dissapointd with as she did a very accurate lovely test but the judge clearly preffered the warmbloods....

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We went straight from the dressage to jump our SJ round and Milli jumped a super clear. I was so so pleased with her, and even more pleased when I was told she scored 32, one of the higest jup marks awarded that day!! After we had jumped our round I had to take her saddle off and trot her up for the conformation and type mark. She trotted up nicely and I felt I did too!!! She scored 12 for this, finishing on a score of 59.

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After this I took Milli back to the lorry and got her and Roxie settled into their stables. Milli settled immediately and tucked into her haynet! Roxie was still a little unsure of where she was...she's supposed to be the older, more mature horse but it as Milli looking after Roxie! I rode Roxie around the gallops at Barbury and then schooled her for a bit before returning her to her stable and this time she was much more settled.

WE then set of to walk Roxie's XC course with one of SGEventing's super sponsors, Ultimate Images. Paul gave me some grea advice as we walked round the course, which was by far one of the most challenging courses I have ever done. There was big drops, tricky combination and very skinny skinnies!! It was a course that needed to be attacked and I couldn't wait to get started....
First though it was time for dinner and after a few drinks it was bedtime! NIGHT!
 
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The dressage arenas at Barbury are MILES away from the lorry park and stables so we had a nice hack over to the warm up area. Luckily there are golf buggies that take your team members backwards and forwards! Roxie warmed-up well and did a nice test. There were noticeable improvemets from the last time we did this test at Tweseldown which was nice. She scored 34.6 which put us in the top half so I was pleased :)

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I went to walk the SJ course after we returned from the dressage and it looked a nice course. It was right up height so I was a little nervous as we have only jumped 1.20m once, at Tweseldown a few weeks before! Roxie jumped a great round but had 2 down unfortunately. The first fence was very wide and she just came down on the back rail and the other fece she only taped it! Roxie's SJ rounds are continueing to improve each time out and she really listened to me and came back to me when I wanted to so I couldn't wait to get out on the XC!

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With a quick change of boots and my clothes we headed over to the XC warm up. To be honest I was a little bit nervous when I was warming up but kept going over the course in my head and made sure I knew exactly where I was going! GO.....off we went and Roxie settled into a great rhythm straight away! The round went perfectly and Roxie jumped straight routes through all the combinations brilliantly :)

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I was so so pleased with Roxie, she had gone brilliantly!! I took her back and sorted her out and then MAx took Roxie and Milli for a walk around the car park whilst we sorted everything out and started to pac the lorry ready for the long journey home.

We eventually made it home at some ridiculous hour on saturday morning after we ran out of fuel at 1:30am.....long story! It was a great few days away and I can't wait until the next stay-away competition with both Roxie and Milli, hopefully sooner rather than later!

Pictues and videos now uploaded in Roxie's and Milli's competition Galleries so please feel free to have a look. We have a busy few weeks coming up now and we are back out competiting on Tuesday (the 2nd July) at Tweseldown with Milli who will be doing her first Lycetts 4 year old qualifier.....wish us luck :) After Tweseldown, Brightling International is next, where Roxie will be doing the 1* class as we begin our move up to compete at Intermediate level!

So, until next time,

SGEventing
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