Aske and Buckminster Park - Update!

First weekend of July and we were competing at Aske Hall Horse Trials with Donnermere.  He was competing in the ONu18(q), which was the last qualifier for the Northern Region.  Donnermere (Beanie) has already completed two of this regions qualifiers, with double clears in both, so didn't really need to compete in this one, but as we had entered him as a back up qualifier, just in case, we went along for a run.

It was a very hot day and all the flys were out, and despite being covered liberally in fly spray, managed to get a horse fly attached to him in the dressage phase!  This spoilt the halt and walk movements as he was throwing his head around and biting at himself trying to remove the offending fly!  Anyway, not to worry, he got a respectable 38.0, which was a bit average for him but reasonable in the section.

The showjumping was a nice course and he performed a fairly nice round with an unlucky 4 faults at a parallel.

He flew round the cross country finding it easy and finishing well within the time limit.  He finished 5th in the section and it was a good performance overall.  He feels ready for his upgrade at the end of the month to Intermediate at Cholmonderley Castle and we look forward to see how well he copes.

In the meantime, he has been invited to compete at Haras du Pin in France in August by British Eventing as they feel that some promising combinations could benefit from International experience so we are very excited about that and are looking forward to it enormously.  This will be at 1* level.

BUCKMINSTER PARK

The following weekend we took Louis (Kellys Lad) to compete in a 5yo class at Buckminster Park.  We have never competed at this event before and were very impressed at the good organisation, cross country courses and excellent ground conditions.

Louis felt a bit quiet and flat in his test and didn't show off his work as well as he ususally does and this resulted in a mark of 37.0 which was his worse mark of the year so far and was very average in the class.  His showjumping was not much better with an unusual run out at fence 2 when he clocked what he thought was a very spooky filler!  He finished the course though, after getting a telling off, with another fence down so got 8 faults.  This was an unusually bad round for him as he is a very careful and clean showjumper and had jumped clear the week before in the BYEH class at Richmond to get a jumping score of 36/40 which was the highest in the 5yo section and that had been a much bigger bolder course.  Anyway, he's only 5 and still learning.

He redeemed himself on the cross country course though with a lovely clear and within the time.  He feels much more confident with this phase now.  Anyway, needless to say, he didn't get placed and finished 21st.

Louis - Buckminster Park

Anyway, Louis is competing at Burgham in the BE100 next and Beanie is competing in the OIu21 at Cholmonderley Castle at the end of the month.

Phoebe Powell and the Eventing Team