Sad news surrounds Hartpury Horse trials for me. I was supposed to be doing Hartpury on Belvedere and for about two weeks up to the event I had been staying with Belv at Tor's in order to get lots of training to ensure a good run. However on the Tuesday of Hartpury week Belv was diagnosed with a hock injury and will be off for the rest of the season. Not only did this mean that Hartpury was out of the question, but it also rules him out of the JRN National Championships at Weston Park. On Wednesday morning it was decided that I would run Jack at Hartpury in Belv's place.

So on Wednesday afternoon Jack was presented for the first trot up which he passed fine, even if he did spy a photographer, stop in his tracks and leap sideways!! 
Unfortunately because I had been away at Tor's with Belv I literally hadn't ridden Jack since Wilton OI two weeks previously and he had only been lightly hacked by a groom. This meant that our Dressage was not very up-together and we didn't do a very good test and got 66.2 which left us right down the order.

The Cross Country course at Hartpury was a very nice course and fairly big, however it was very straight forwards with only a few testing combinations. The main things to think about were fence 12ab which was a steep downhill combination of a log, then 5 slightly curving strides to a very skinny tripple brush, and also right at the end of the course were two houses one stride apart on a very acute angle and then a corner concealed just after a turn through a hedge. Jack sailed round the track and gave me a brilliant ride true to form. Didn't put a foot wrong and sailed inside the time. He finished well and sound and passed the trot up on Sunday morning without incident.

Jack is such a good Show Jumper so I wasn't overly concerned about the Jumping, but it was quite a long, up-to-height and VERY square track so it was still enough of a question. It caused carnage for the first 20-30 competitors with three people managing to fall off! However Jack did an absolutely class round and was his normal amazing genuine, pingy self! We almost had a clear round but I made a slight error to the last fence and the planks came down. Guttingly the four faults cost us a top 50 finish and a point. However I had a great time and am really pleased with how Jack went.....if we forget the Dressage that is!!! We climbed from 90 something after the Dressage, to 61st after the XC and finally to 54th after the SJ!!!

The next stop with Jack is Gatcombe CIC** and then seeing as Belv will no longer be going to Weston, I will take Jack instead and do the CCIYR**! Very exciting!!
I had some more good news this week too - I did my driving theory test on Wednesday and passed and then I got my AS results today.....four A's!!!! Smiles all round!

Well this was a mixed day. It started off brilliantly with the dressage. Tor was riding at the same time so threw some comments to me when I was warming up and Belv went really well. He did a very sweet test but I felt it could have been a bit better in places. However we ended up with 32.5 which is a brilliant score for us and our best ever BE mark together, so I was thrilled with that!

Unfortunately we did rather ruin this in the Show Jumping! We only had one fence down which would have been okay in itself, but we unfortunately picked up a further 4 pens and 5 time faults at fence 4 which gave us a bit of a cricket score. However he flew the XC clear inside the time which pulled us back up the order somewhat and we finished 8th. A double clear would have seen us win and even with the 4 faults we would have been second so that was very irritating and has most likely cost us a place on the JRN team this year. However onwards and upwards to Hartpury CCI* next week!!

Well the dressage had the potential to be quite nice, but unfortunately I forgot to halt on the first centre line and had to re-start which made Jack very tense and upset for the rest of the test, we ended up with 42 which wasn't what I had aimed for!

However, the Show Jumping was much more successful and even though it was very big and Jack hadn't Show Jumped for weeks and I hadn't jumped him on grass since Hambleden, he flew round and didn't touch a pole. What a dudey horse he is! Unfortunately we had a minor miss-understanding over one of our lines to an upright and ground to a halt so picked up a very silly 4 faults and one time penalty. Very annoying as they cost us getting two points for a double clear!

I have to confess I wasn't all that worried about the cross country. After Glanusk it seemed quite tame and straight-forwards. Big in places, yes, but not too technical. In true Jack style he flew round and gave me a fantastic ride apart from the first water where he was very spooky and we clambered in and out over the boat in a very unorthodox style! I have also begun to trust him more and consequently we did a very speedy round just picking up 4.8 time faults. Unfortunately because it was a hotly contested OI section we finished right down the order, but in most other Intermediate section we would have been placed. 
We now head to the CIC** at Gatcombe, and if the ground isn't too hard the CIC** at South of England as well.