Waregem - final day

The hot dry weather turned into some proper rain today and the ground turned from concrete on Wednesday to being pretty mucky and slippery today.

I rode Yes I Can first and he gave me a very pleasing clear, he made it all feel nice and easy and he was very genuine. But the poor boy had a couple of quite bad stumbles on landing in the ground and lost a shoe and an overreach boot, and that made the ground even trickier.  I was slightly cutting it fine un be-known to me, but he got 33 time faults, and the cutoff for qualification is 35 so we got lucky.  I am very pleased to say that he has now got his CIC qualification in the bag which is great ahead of next season.

Little Fire was very excited to be out and on his toes, but once he started he was on the job and gave me a superb round.  He made it all feel like a hunter trial, and you would never have known he wasn’t on perfect ground.  I went a little bit quicker on him, but it was still dead slow, and I think he got 28 time faults which slightly took him out of the reckoning.

I appreciate I got quite a few time faults but it is quite frightening to think that you would have to have gone so much quicker to be inside the time.

Tom’s course was certainly a good course but it was not too difficult, it was certainly educational but not at all tricky.  It however was made a little bit more demanding due to the ground and the weather.

Florence and her team did a fantastic job and made us all feel very welcome.  It was certainly a very happy and friendly event, and I can see why so many people go.  

For me it was a thoroughly worthwhile outing both for Yes to get his qualification and for Little Fire to have a bit more of a serious run before Pau.

It is home for a couple of days and then we are on to Osberton, and hearing what weather it has been at home it is unlikely that we are going to have another weekend on the concrete.