What an awesome weekend we've had at the British Riding Clubs Area 20 Horse Trials Qualifier. Once again our area have put on a fantastic event and a very testing one at that. I rode Florence in the Intermediate (100) and she really was a star from start to finish. A beautiful test for 27.4, followed by one of her foot perfect clear rounds Showjumping and then back to her old self with a confident, feisty cross country round. This left her in 1st spot in a very large section. It was so lucky to win because unfortunately our other Nantwich team members all had problems cross country, so our only hope of qualifying was to win.
Next was Percy's turn in the 100+, our first event over bigger showjumps!!! I had had to change his bridle in the search for some brakes, but maybe did it a phase to early, as it backed him off a little too much in the dressage and we made a couple of basic mistakes like breaking in his canter, but 33.7 wasn't a bad score by any means. Showjumping my brakes (Mexican noseband) worked perfectly and apart from spooking at a polepicker in the hedge and having the first fence down, he jumped a lovely round. My brakes still sort of failed cross country and by the end of it had go-go-gadget-arms but a beautiful, confident clear was good enough for 3rd spot, with out the fence down SJ we would have won, but I wasn't to worried as our Nantwich Team of John Done, Amanda Dakin and Lisa Cadman did us proud and we took first and the National qualification.
So the two homebred's are both off to the championships....delighted doesn't cover how I feel :-) x