Bicton Days 2 & 3

Bicton day 3

We had a very enjoyable day at Bicton and it turned out to be a bit of a Dressage success day.

Little Fire and Oratorio were in the OI and they both got 25 in the dressage and were both lying second, they then did pleasing double clears.  Oratorio was still nice and relaxed and took it all in his stride.  Little Fire was slightly on his toes as it is his first proper event for rather a long time. 

Atlantic Vital Spark and Grafennacht were my afternoon horses and they both led the dressage, Grafennacht was on 23 and Atlantic Vital Spark was on 24.  A very exciting outcome on the dressage front for Atlantic Vital Spark, and he even beat Tim Price’s Wesko who is infamously posh at dressage.  Both of them jumped good rounds and had a pole down.  I let Atlantic Vital Spark run on a bit cross country and he went very comfortably for 4 time faults and finished 4^th.  I felt it was early enough in the season not to be going any faster than that on July ground. Grafennacht gave me a great feel  and came home with 15 time faults which put her out of the money.

We all had a very positive day, and I was jolly lucky to be riding four such smart horses.  It was quite spoiling and not something that I should start to expect.

I was also back at Bicton yesterday with Dazzling Ruler.  He had a good outing, performed very well in dressage and cross country but had silly poles down in the show jumping being a bit of a goofy youngster.

Helen West and the Bicton team had done a very decent job with the ground which was basically bone dry. There had been bits of rain but that evaporated in five minutes.  But the aggravating and landings certainly helped and the sandy soil at Bicton broke up well.  It was certainly good enough ground to run on but, me being me, I felt it was certainly worth keeping the hand brake on.