Dauntsey

Duke Legacy made a quick turnaround and was out at Dauntsey yesterday, and it was quite a warm one.  He did a really pleasing dressage and scored 25, in the show jumping there was a bit of a muddle – he had one unlucky pole but the jockey managed to turn the wrong way after the first fence, so I carried another 4 faults for time or for crossing my tracks.  I wasn’t too concerned because I didn’t want to push-on on the dry ground.  It was a more decent Novice than some of the ones he has tackled before, and I was very pleased with how he coped.  We took all the direct routes and he took on the Beanie Sturgis course with lots of confidence.  Beanie had built a nice varied course with several fair questions but even though she had worked on the ground it was still pretty firm. 

Cayiano was having his second event and despite the score board he had a very satisfactory day.  He did a lovely dressage despite a few unsteadiness’s, he took a distinct disliking to the gated rather than solid dressage boards, but he got less scared as the test went on.  He jumped a lovely clear show jumping and despite his enthusiasm I had sufficient control. He tackled the cross country in a very encouraging way, the 100 course asked a lot of questions, I really did not know what to expect.  Number 6 was a double of T-bar arrow heads, which in my opinion was certainly not a suitable 100 question.  I really don’t think he realised that it was a jump, he ran out at the first and was very good to jump it second time. He then ran out at the second and jumped that the second time, so I carried on very encouraged by him not giving up.  There were plenty more questions and I was wondering whether we might end up with a big E on the board.  But he took on the rest and really had a go even though he jumped the odd fence from trot.  He will now have a little bit of a quiet time while I am away and his next event will be West Wilts.