It's been a long weekend!!! On Saturday I took Percy and Florence to Brand Hall Horse Trials, which is our most local event. I ran them both in the Novice, their first this season. Florence did a good dressage for 31.3 which was actually 4th after dressage. Percy was a little excitable and strong in his test for 37. Then they both had 2 down SJ round a very testing and big track. Percy again was just keen and Florence jumped out of her skin but was unlucky at fence 2, the bogey fence which a lot were having, then didn't quite make the distance through the combination and literally just tapped the middle parallel back rail. But thrilled with the pair of them for giving it a good go. Then the Xc was causing a fair amount of trouble. There were quite a few combinations in the middle section of the course and a lot of skinnies!!! I had decided that I just wanted to run them slowly and use it more like a schooling round because they had never seen such a testing track. Percy was an absolute double handful and bold as brass. He was clear with 20 time penalties. I was thrilled how he locked on to all the tiny skinnies etc but just wish he wasn't so strong. Florence was really polite and apart from being a little shocked by all the questions, she gave everything a really good go. I was delighted how she was going but she had a brief naughty moment at a corner, which was rather annoying having jumped all the tough combinations. She also got 21.3 time penalties. Overall pleased with them and pleased to get the first novice of the season out of the way.
Then on Sunday I headed to Aston-le-Walls for the Horslyx Festival of the Horse British Riding Clubs Championship. Florence had qualified for the combined training championships. Considering she'd had such a big day on the Saturday she tried her little heart out for 31.1 dressage and clear SJ to finish 5th in her section.
The Championships was sponsored by my sponsors Horslyx, so it was lovely to catch up with them and they spoilt me by taking me to the hospitality tent for lunch. A real treat considering I hadn't even thought about dinner. It was a lovely event and great to catch up with many people that I hadn't seen since the last BRC Championships.