Spring is definitely my favourite time
of year, the weather is starting to improve, the nights are getting lighter,
everything's a bit more green and...It’s the start of the eventing season!!
Following our winter of dressage and then a fab skiing holiday (or two!) it was
time to knuckle down and get ready for our first event of the season. We headed
to Lincolnshire Horse Trials with Herbie and decided to enter the BE100 (a
level lower than we were competing at in the second half of last season) as I
always get a bit rusty over winter and I think it's good to get a nice
confidence giving run under our belt.
Lincoln Show Ground is known for being quite open and a little bit spooky in
the dressage so I was really pleased that Herbie behaved impeccably to score a
very respectable 28.5 meaning we were lying 2nd after this phase. He
hasn't competed on grass since the end of last season so it was nice to see his
maturity.
Next was the showjumping, it's in Lincoln Show Ground’s main ring which is
really nice but gives them plenty of chance to spook! Again, he was really
grown up and just had one daft fence down which was entirely my fault!!
Finally was the cross country. This year stopwatches have been allowed at BE100
so I decided to wear mine as it's good practice for the higher levels.
Well...it is if you remember to set it off!!! I think we were a bit over
excited at the prospect of getting out the start box and I totally forgot!
Herbie was a dream the whole way round and never missed a beat. Unfortunately
it meant we were too fast and ended up with 7 REVERSE time faults!!!
These additional faults dropped us down to 14th but I was really pleased that
he came out fresh and keen and happy to back out doing what he loves. We're entered
in the novice at Breckenbrough and Belton before aiming for the CIC* at
Chatsworth in May.
In between our eventing prep we have also been out dressaging and with a win
and a 3rd we now have qualification for the Summer Regionals at
Elementary. Whilst we were competing at Northallerton we bumped into Up With
The Lark (who was actually competing in the arena next to us at the same
time!), he is the dad to our next foal who is due in May and I even got a
cheeky picture of him!
Lucie
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