Gatcombe Friday

Georgisaurous was having another run around the Intermediate. As usual he did a very nice test and was rather unfortunate to only get 30. Quite a boring mark.  He jumped a much better round of show jumping for a clear round, he was a bit exuberant but he was really trying to clear the fences.  Cross country was nice and slow and clear, with a couple of green moments, but he is obviously learning all the time at this level now so overall I was very happy with how he felt.

It was very exciting to have Little Fire out again on top form. He also did a lovely dressage of 28, and I also thought the judging was quite stingy.  He did a fault free test and it was pretty smart.  Show jumping was a bit of an exercise as he was very excited by everything.  We had another drama when my hat came undone again as it did at Gatcombe.  So with circles and time there was a bit of a cricket score.   On the cross country he was excellent and very happy to be out.

I have got a new horse from the Biats stud which is out of the same mother as Oslo.  He has had a few setbacks in his career and is now sorted and he will probably be on the market at the end of the season.  He rather wonderfully got 16 in the dressage, how lovely it was to have a positive judge!  He jumped a good clear show jumping, and he gave me a very decent ride across country but he had one stupid runout at a log into the wood which he was never looking at.  His Gatcombe run will hopefully have brought him on a lot for his next outing in ten days.

The Gatcombe team had done a very good job, and they had even had a little bit of rain. The ground was certainly not good but it was at least go-able quietly, in my opinion.  Which was great because I was totally expecting to not be running.
I don’t dare pray for rain for Blenheim because we will then get a deluge, but let’s hope we get something in the next few days.

Photos of Little Fire from William Carey Photography