Barbury

We had a productive and fairly boiling day at Barbury. I was riding three novices and it turned out to be a fairly sweaty experience.  

I had Duke Legacy in the open novice and he did a good test to score 29.  The arenas are pretty awful because they are on the side of a hill but at least they are near the lorries and access is very easy.  Certainly he found the slope rather hard work and I had to do a bit of encouraging.

He then jumped a very decent clear in the main arena, it was quite a nice easy course but it is still good to jump a clear. On the cross country he went well, quite a different track to Farley.  It is very up and down and there are a lot of fences off a turn and on a camber, so it was testing balance to the limit. He clipped the back of a corner with the hind leg and that did trigger the pin, which actually under British Eventing rules you are not penalised. But I, having not had many pins, did not realise that and slowed down and we got a few time faults.

Cayiano was having his second novice run and scored a 30 in the dressage. He went nicely but was a bit unsteady and unbalanced. Jumped a double clear and got his second BE point. I would like to believe that he had really come on from his experience at Farley.

I then had Papillon Noir doing his first novice, he did a very pleasing test and got a very nice mark of 22. It is great to have the odd generous judge to keep up morale. His show jumping score was a little disappointing but he actually jumped a very pleasing round. He had 3 down but I was in no way disappointed.  As far as the cross country was concerned I was really pleased with how he copes with all the Barbury terrain.  He was certainly green and a bit wobbly but he was very genuine and relaxed.

I had Chloe as my course advisor today and we have now got a family weekend for my mother’s 80th.