Belton Sunday

Day 3 at Belton was rather a work in progress day.  Things did not go totally to plan but it was hopefully productive.

Oratorio show jumped actually very well although he rolled two poles.  I was pleased with his round and he tried hard over quite a decent track.  The cross country round was overall good, but after accelerating a little bit on the course my brakes were then rather inadequate, and we flew through the sunken road at the end resulting in me having to turn a circle to get into the last corner.   So although he went clear he got a very annoying 20.  He might have been a bit fresh but my Belton bit clearly doesn’t work.

Little Fire always is at Belton very on his toes.  He was electric in the show jumping warmup but actually was quite sensible once he went into the main ring.  He unbelievably had three fences down which I don’t think he has ever done before, so he will have to do a bit more homework.  The main arena at Belton are very electric and atmospheric and that is why I go, but it wasn’t meant to be quite as challenging.  On the cross country he felt amazing and gave me a foot perfect round so I ended the day on a very happy note.

Stuart Buntine had built a pretty decent track with some quite clever questions, so it was a good pre Badminton run.  I am hoping that my two will be much improved for the outing because if it was Badminton today they certainly wouldn’t be in the shake up!