Well well well...I never thought I'd see the day! After years of longing to have a go at P2P-ing I finally got the chance! Mum lent me her team-chasing/hunt ride horse (Cloons Master Plan/Ross) to enter into the Tim Carter Hunt Memorial Challenge.  It was run as the last race of the day, over just one lap of the course omitting the open ditch, and restricted to people who have never held a P2P licence.

My friend from Eventing and work at Venetia William's kindly lent me all the kit and also came with her mum to help, support, watch and take photos! Below are some photos of me & Ross all kitted up back at the lorry before I had to put the ghastly number bib on!

Finally after a bit of hanging around & getting increasingly more nervous it was time to head to the paddock and parade!

Mum paraded Ross in her snazzy new boots that she bought at Badminton whilst I chatted to Beth who was going to leg me up, posed for a few photos (to be seen below!!!) and got even more nervous & exctied!!

After fifteen minutes or so it was time to be legged up and make our way down to the start! Ross was surprisingly very well behaved whilst I was legged up but once the master who was leading us to the start blew the hunting horn he got considerably more excited and was very strong cantering to the start line!

Once down at the start we had our girths checked and a briefing where basically they just reminded us to go around the open ditch! And then finally...WE WERE OFF!!!! Perfect stride over fence one which was a relief! We got a bit close to fence 2 and Ross pinged me out of the saddle slightly...unfortunately this is where all the photographs were taken! What was more worrying was the person next to me flying through the air and landing very hard at my horses feet! Rather scary! There was a long gallop to fence 3 because we had to go around the open ditch! The leading horse took a dislike to the fence and ran around it but Ross flew it brilliantly, we really stood off it and it was an amazing feeling!

Unfortunately fence 4 was where it all went a bit pair shaped! We jumped it well, but on the landing/getaway stride Ross tripped and did the most spectacular nose dive (he had a very green grass stained nose) and went arse over tit (muddy saddle) face-planting me into the ground in the process! Not ideal & such a shame as it was going really well and I was really enjoying it! Very annoying to have not finished the race but it hasn't put me off! I just really want to get out there and have another go....possibly on a proper Point to Point horse & in a proper race.....!!