Latest News

I started off May with taking a weekend to go show jumping at Pyecombe, near Brighton. It was nice to have a change and practice my jumping, competing the boys in 1.10m and 1.15m classes. We were preparing Riz for Chepstow and P for Houghton Hall so we were going up on the gallops lots which I love! I was also having my last lessons at school before I left school for study leave. P had his pre-Houghton run at Aston le Walls around the intermediate, and Charlie had his first intermediate to qualify for a CCI*. They were both really good in the dressage, scoring in the low 30’s. Unfortunately the weather was really wet and so the going got quite sticky in the show jumping. It caused lots of problems but P jumped clear. Charlie tried really, really hard but just struggled with the ground so ended up having two down.

Cross country I decided to run them both slowly because I wanted to look after P before Houghton and Charlie just needed to use the round to learn. Both jumped fantastic but weren’t placed because of the time faults, otherwise P would have won. My main priority was to have P fresh and confident for Houghton though.

It was then my birthday to look forward to on the Tuesday before Chepstow! I went out for dinner with the family and a couple of friends which was really nice. I am sharing a big party with a friend in June to celebrate after my exams.

We left for Chepstow on the Wednesday morning; I trotted up that afternoon and walked the course. It had changed a lot from the previous year; the big hills were in the middle of the course as opposed to the end. I had my dressage on the Thursday because I had to return to school on the Friday for lessons and leaver’s day. Riz was working nicely so I felt positive going into the arena - he is always so consistent, so although other horses were lighting up I didn’t think Riz would. We did a really good test scoring 40.2, four marks ahead of all competitors in both CCI sections on the Thursday.

I came back to Chepstow on Friday afternoon to find that Riz and I were still leading by three marks at the end of dressage. I gave him a jump that evening and he was feeling very cheeky and excited! My cross country time was quite early so I didn’t have a chance to watch much. As I went into the start box, one person was approaching the last fence which I could see, and as the starter said ‘3’ this poor girl had a really bad fall at the last so I wasn’t started. When I finally managed to get underway, Riz felt fantastic - he is such a straight horse cross country and we were up on all the minute markers, finishing 12 seconds inside the time.

The following day's trot up went fine and then show jumping was in the afternoon. In the CCI* Junior Championship there were only five clears. When I went into the arena I had two fences in hand but I really wanted to finish on my dressage score and Riz is normally very careful. We ended up jumping a fantastic clear round to win the competition by 11 marks! I was over the moon! Riz has been such a fantastic horse and hopefully we will go on and be just as competitive in young riders.

When we got home we almost turned around straight away, to go to Houghton Hall. This was my first CCI** so it was very exciting! P had been working beautifully on the flat and was looking as though he would do a seriously smart test. However when I started warming him up for my test he managed to get his tongue over the bit and then bit it all down the side and panicked. After that he was really difficult in his mouth because the whole left hand side of his tongue was red raw.

We managed to get through without any disasters but I was really gutted because it could have been so much better, but these things happen! His score was 55.3 which put me in 30th place. We didn’t do too much with him on the Friday because we wanted to give his mouth a chance to heal so we just gave him a quiet jump. I really liked the cross country course, I thought it was beautifully built and was really looking forward to riding it on P. My cross country wasn’t until Saturday afternoon, so in the morning I went up to the finish to see how tired the CCI* horses were. They all looked really good and I wasn’t worried about P because he was fit enough. He gave me a fantastic feel around the course, I really enjoyed it. I took a long route early on at fence 7 as it was a big ask and had been causing lots of problems. However I went the straight ways everywhere else and I was thrilled with my round, picking up just 2.4 time faults. Show jumping in the rain at Houghton

P was as good as new in the trot up the next morning, which was good. Unfortunately the weather had decided to take a turn for the worse and the rain came! P is normally very careful show jumping but the ground was a bit sticky and the poles were coming off the cups quite easily. He jumped well but had two down which I was really gutted with. He barely touched them but instead of finishing 11th we finished 22nd so it was very costly. However I know that there are many great things to come with P and this is barely the start of it!

The start of the season was a disaster for some events, with the weather and poor conditions forcing them to cancel. I seemed to be lucky though because none that I entered were cancelled!

I went to Isleham and Poplar for my first two. At Isleham I didn’t run any of the horses very fast because the ground was quite deep but Charlie came sixth in the Pre Novice. I then took Charlie and Harry to Poplar. They ran in the novice and I was pleased with both of them: Charlie jumped double clear in just his second novice and Harry also show jumped clear.

Aldon was the next stop. I had never been there before - for the last five years we have gone to Lincoln, so it was quite exciting to go somewhere new. It was very sunny which made a nice change and the event was lovely. I had day before dressage so we went down on Saturday. I walked the course when we got there: it was nice, not the biggest intermediate, but it did have a few complexes that were quite technical and up to height.

I then did both dressage tests. Harry was a good boy, his flat work is coming along. He still isn’t the smartest on the flat but he is getting there! P was very excited again. It was only his second event and I think it will take a few more runs to calm him down. He tries so hard and when I started to go around the arena I could feel him tensing. I did all I could to settle him before I went down the centre line but it wasn’t going to be his best test ever, I could tell.

In the morning it was incredibly windy and we kept getting sudden heavy showers which weren’t the nicest early in the morning! I really liked the show jumping track, I don’t know who built it but I thought that it was the best show jumping track I had ever seen in eventing. There were only four clears in my section though, and two of those were Harry and P - they jumped really well! I rode P first cross country. It was only his second intermediate and he was fantastic, he gave me such a great feel and went all the direct routes. Towards the end he started to feel quite tired though so I steadied up a bit and we had seven time faults - but still finished third which was great.

Harry was next and it was my first intermediate with him. He gave me a great feel, he's such a good cross country horse. Unfortunately three quarters of the way round there were two arrowhead roll tops set on some hollows. I went the straight way here with P and flew through, riding quite positively because I was expecting him to be green, having never seen anything like it. With Harry I was expecting him to jump in quite big and so I sat far too still and we ended up having a stupid run out. I was so cross with myself because it was all my fault, but I learnt from it so hopefully it won’t happen again. Without this Harry would have been placed so it was a shame.

Great Witchingham was the next event for me. I had never been there before either so it was fun to jump round a totally new course. I took Riz (Society Spice) for his first outing since the Europeans, and Charlie. Riz was unbelievably fresh, I took him out once before his dressage but he still seemed to have oodles of energy left, and he was so cheeky in his test! He shot off about three times but luckily managed to stop at the boards so we didn’t leave the arena, but we also did some impressive bucking with double barrelling! Great Fun! He made up for it though, jumping double clear. He is such a fun horse to ride and I had forgotten how awesome he is cross country. Charlie was a really good boy, just one down show jumping and he jumped fantastically across country. We had a bit of a problem because half way round the course, coming into a complex, my cheekpiece came undone. I jumped off, did it back up, hopped back on and finished - but consequently we had tons of time penalties, not his fault!