Milo Wins

Milo (Man Friday) won an unaffiliated 90 at Aston Le Walls today. He finished on his 28 dressage. Very very pleased with him, as it was his first attempt at this level. He was really bold and got inside the time easily. I took Emma and Rory with me, I have been helping them train their new young horse Lux on Your Side(Alfie). Rory competed him today, we were thrilled when they did a lovely clear XC at their first ode.

Houghton Hall cic 3*

This is the most lovely event, just like Blenheim. I walked the course and it was big but really perfect for Icon.
He passed the vet inspection with flying colours. We dusted off our Top Hat and Tails and performed our test in front of Houghton Hall to score a 63, into 32 place we were thrilled. Icon had beaten 11 horses and had managed 6's for his scraggly flying changes!!
Show Jumping was in the atmospheric main arena. Every rider was announced with the country we were riding for. Icon grew 4 inches! He was superb, it was 1.25m, we had only one pole and one time fault, it caused lots of trouble. We moved up 12 places to 20th. I was so excited.
Next the XC. He set off well but was jumping a bit to one side and lacked power to the big gallopy fences. By the time I had jumped a few of the massive tables I realised my flying machine was not functioning properly, he was backing off, I had no umph in the canter, and we had our first ever run out at a corner. Icon was just not himself at all so I decided to pull up at fence 12. His next run is not for a few weeks so I may give him a fun run at an unaffiliated Novice in the meantime.
Next outing - its Milo doing an unaffiliated 90 at Aston Le Walls.

Icon at Brigstock Horse Trials

The gound was firm but springy old turf, the best I have competed on for ages. Icon was on springs. Just one down sj, dressage judge didn't like our test and we did! He was fab and fast XC, it was more like a small advanced. The water jump at 5 caused trouble but it was fun to ride on Icon, a log then a big step drop into water, then out and another log into water followed by a skinny seat. He got a round of applause as he popped through. We finished 12th, even more annoying about the dressage mark as that stopped us getting a good place.
We are aiming for another 3* soon, so fingers crossed he trots up sound in the morning, Johnathan his Chiropractor is giving him a check up tomorrow. It has been a brilliant weekend.
I am especially feeling lucky as we got diverted coming home and missed the diesel station, the lorry drove 30 miles on empty. I tried to lighten the load by getting Ant and Sweep to walk but they refused! At last we arrived at the M6 services. We were so certain it would run out we celebrated with Cheeseburger and Chips.

Top Gun 10th

Top Gun came 10th today at Mount Ballan. He was in the top 6 after dressage and jumped double clear. He had only 4 time faults, hes at last lost his wobble in between fences. He also wore Mark Todd ear covers which helped with the spooking. We found out at Rodbaston it was the loud speaker by fence 3 that caused several horses to shoot sideways! I thought Mount Ballan was the toughest BE100 course I have done this year, lots of combinations, water, coffin that finished on a turn to a corner, two sunken roads and a double of brush skinneys with a bank to trip up between them. Ground was like concrete, Top Gun didn't seem to mind, I moved on a bit but not flat out, some peoples times were over a minute faster than the optimum, it was scary watching them hammer along on the hard ground.

Hartpury Take It 2 Top back in work.

4 year old Monty is back in work. He has had 5 weeks off as the ground went hard, he got ring worm and then pus in a back foot. I lunged him yesterday and he was really fresh, spooking at things blowing in the wind, I cowardly decided it was too windy to get on! Today the wind has gone and as "its too sunny" was not an acceptable excuse I plucked up courage and rode him. He was gorgeous, just sooooo lovely. Sadly I can no longer call Monty and Top Gun "The Broomstick Brothers". They have at last filled out to feel wider than sitting on broomsticks, and are now much easier to sit on! I think I am going to download some Burghley Young Event Horse schedules.........

Cuddly Milo Is an Eventing Star

5 year old Milo (Man Friday) competed in his first ever ODE at Solihull. It was also his first ever competition involving XC fences so was quite a big ask. He did an amazing 34 dressage, think all good marks earned using his "R" factor! This put him in 3rd and it was a big section with over 20 entries. He then went double clear to keep him in 3rd place. You can see in the picture he loved the XC and even boldly cantered into the water like a pro!
Cheeky Top Gun got a late entry after his spookiness on Thursday, he came 2nd in a different section to Milo, no spooks this time with a double clear, it was an easy fun run for him that I think mentally he needed.

Cheeky Top Gun

Rodbaston- We continued our good dressage scores, with a 32. Top Gun was the youngest in the class, he had been put in the Open BE100 against downgraded horses. He had just one rail in the SJ, it was a big track in a small, spooky indoor school. XC was better overall as he was galloping much straighter between fences. But he was too fresh and spooked at a car at fence 3 gaining an unlucky 20 penalties, we were not even properly near the fence. Then he hestitated too long off the big drop off the bank and so came home with 40 penalties in total. All young horse stuff, no doubt his greeness will diminish and his talent will win me a BE100 soon!!!

Icon does a fly past!

First apologies to anyone who has tried to email via my website, I have not ignored you its not working. We are looking into the gremlins.
Hambledon Intermediate today. My stiff old Icon pulled a 28 dressage out of nowhere, he had 8's for his centre lines and for his leg yields and was in 8th place, Oh My Goodness Me! Then showjumping he backed off a related distance and just tipped one rail off, we were still in the running for a good place. This would be easy peasy!
I set out of the start box like a rocket and flew, not taking a pull anywhere, intermediate feels small now.
Then suddenly I was approaching a gallopy fence, a wide skinney spread joined between the Novice and BE100 fences, we had a skinney bit in the middle to jump, Oh no, Icon locked on to the Novice fence and over we flew, "Sugar" I said! I had to pull up a very fast Icon, trot back among the trees and bluebells, apologise to the judge for my language and rejump the fence. Drat. I had a fabulous ride though, he was very strong but otherwise foot perfect.
I once again picked Pippa Funnells brains to solve my big horse small girl syndrome(BHSG). She produced a bit that works on all her BHSG syndrome horses. Fab, I will report when I have tried it out.

Rif Raf Weaned and Loose Horses

Ten Month old Rif Raf has been weaned this week, her mum Butterfly has gone up the farm so far away they can't hear each other. Rif Raf has settled well and is leading in hand in walk and trot. Also she has tied up properly and has walked boldly over poles on the school. She is very stunning and I rather like her.

Some D of E teenagers left a gate open in the youngstock field today and they escaped(the horses not the teenagers). No harm done just a lot of holes in a ready to plant field. We tracked the group down to a camp site and the childrens teacher rang us to apologise he was really sorry and said it won't happen again.

Milo and Top Gun went to Summerhouse BSJA this week. They both jumped clears although on a ticket so no winnings, I was so pleased with them. Milo is now entered for his first ODE in a week. It is raining torrential rain so we will be able to run Icon XC this weekend, I can't wait.

Dressage then Solihull and Withington

• Top Gun won scoring 80% at a local dressage show. Wow, the judge loved him.


• At Solihull Top Gun did a fab dressage to score 33,would have been good enough to win it. But (always a but in eventing!) he was crazy in the SJ as he heard and spotted the XC and tried cantering sideways into the fences so had 3 down, annoying but he is still lovely. The ground was firm so I withdrew him from the XC to save him for another day. I went with my web designer Louise Calverley, she had a really good day clear XC to finish 13th. Like Top Gun her horse is also just starting to do BE100 and is looking very confident at this level now.


• Icon went to Withington to do the Advanced, again the ground was firm. A few minutes before I was due in to dressage I realised they were not riding the test I had learnt. Weird as I check this several times before an event as I am a bit dyslexic. Turned out I had been put in the 3* section who had a different test. Arghhh....panic, someone gave me the test to learn but my mind couldn't take it in that quickly so I decided to withdraw. Turned out lots of other riders had the same problem. Pippa Funnell told me she luckily found out just before she got on so had time to learn it and Mark Kyle said he managed to learn it in the 3 minutes just before he went in the arena! I decided it was fate telling me not to run Icon on the hard ground!