West Wilts

Under Oath's return to Eventing at West Wilts was a pretty good day.  For various reasons, but no fault of his own, he has not competed since Dauntsey in July, so he was quite surprised to be out.  His dressage was good, as usual, and he was in 2nd place on 26.8.  He was a little bit ring rusty as the ground has been quite firm and he hasn’t been in the dressage arena for quite a while., but that didn’t phase him.  He then jumped a lovely clear show jumping and the same applied to the cross country.  Both were nice easy courses so he wasn't tested anyway, but not being off the place for a couple of months is quite a big deal in a 6yo’s life normally.  He is not amassing points, but he added another one to his tally, I am now hoping for some good ground at some of his last events so I can push on a bit and see if we could pull off a win.

I also had Taverna Tony, a new ride, having his first outing.  Although he is a Novice horse I decided to run him in a 100.  He was previously ridden by Leonard Gorens and has done several novices, but I felt that with no cross country practice, I would rather start in 100.  He did a very nice test.  The show jumping was a bit unexplained with 3 silly fences down, and he then popped around the cross country very happily.  He is rather a large horse so has got to learn to do a lot of shortening, and I am still seeing rather too many long ones…..his next run will be Novice.