Sorry – bit of a delayed Blair update as I headed off on holidays straight afterwards and ran out of time.
We headed up to the European Championships at Blair on the Thu afternoon – obviously not eventing as although I’m still over the moon about our placing at Hutton – it wasn’t quite good enough for a team call up ;-)
We were show jumping in the British Novice class in the BS competition and also watching all the riders in the Euros.
Although I got a little lost on the way up (detour via Gleneagles) we arrived and got settled in quite quickly. Corky was a little nervous to start with but as soon as he realised there was grass in his stable he was happy!
We jumped our first round on the Friday, and our second on the Sunday. I was pleased with our Friday round – took a couple of pole due to my nerves and Corky being super keen but overall very good. The height didn’t cause any issues either which was great. Unfortunately the weather turned on the Saturday and we had a full day and night of torrential rain. Massive respect to all of the team members riding round Ian Stark’s big bold XC course in such conditions. We saw some spectacular riding, especially by both the British and German teams. Made my British Novice course look like it was for the Shetland Grand National! Poor Corky came out for a quick hack but was stuck in his box out of the rain for most of the day.
We were jumping at lunchtime on the Sunday which meant the warm-up was like a mud pit by then and we couldn’t safely really do much warming up. We went in to jump our round and got stuck in the holding area as the rider in front was having a few problems. Corky did not like being held in and got quite upset which put me off a bit. I didn’t really get him together before starting my round so the first half wasn’t great. I did manage to compose myself (and him) for the second half which was much better. It was like a speed derby but had quite a few poles flying which wasn’t the idea.
All in all we had a great time at Blair, but maybe not our best show jumping which is frustrating. I’m hoping to be able to take Lucas with us too next year as it’s more his type of event. I think Corky misses the XC too much! Corky is now having a 3 week holiday before we get stuck into the dressage and show jumping over the winter. I’m also off to the States for 2 weeks of R&R :-)
We headed up to the European Championships at Blair on the Thu afternoon – obviously not eventing as although I’m still over the moon about our placing at Hutton – it wasn’t quite good enough for a team call up ;-)
We were show jumping in the British Novice class in the BS competition and also watching all the riders in the Euros.
Although I got a little lost on the way up (detour via Gleneagles) we arrived and got settled in quite quickly. Corky was a little nervous to start with but as soon as he realised there was grass in his stable he was happy!
We jumped our first round on the Friday, and our second on the Sunday. I was pleased with our Friday round – took a couple of pole due to my nerves and Corky being super keen but overall very good. The height didn’t cause any issues either which was great. Unfortunately the weather turned on the Saturday and we had a full day and night of torrential rain. Massive respect to all of the team members riding round Ian Stark’s big bold XC course in such conditions. We saw some spectacular riding, especially by both the British and German teams. Made my British Novice course look like it was for the Shetland Grand National! Poor Corky came out for a quick hack but was stuck in his box out of the rain for most of the day.
We were jumping at lunchtime on the Sunday which meant the warm-up was like a mud pit by then and we couldn’t safely really do much warming up. We went in to jump our round and got stuck in the holding area as the rider in front was having a few problems. Corky did not like being held in and got quite upset which put me off a bit. I didn’t really get him together before starting my round so the first half wasn’t great. I did manage to compose myself (and him) for the second half which was much better. It was like a speed derby but had quite a few poles flying which wasn’t the idea.
All in all we had a great time at Blair, but maybe not our best show jumping which is frustrating. I’m hoping to be able to take Lucas with us too next year as it’s more his type of event. I think Corky misses the XC too much! Corky is now having a 3 week holiday before we get stuck into the dressage and show jumping over the winter. I’m also off to the States for 2 weeks of R&R :-)
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