Well, very very very long day at Chatsworth!! Set off at 6am and returned home at 10:20pm, so a 16 1/2 hour day! Poor Belvedere! However, we had a reasonably good day, especially considering it was our first IN.

Well, I got very stressed just before the Dressage! We discovered that I had forgotten the camera, and then when I tried to find the dressage I was blind to the sign and got very lost, meaning I had little time to warm up. However the test went okay. There were cows at the end of the arena so his attention was wavering so he was a bit 'heady'. But I was pleased with how he coped with the Intermediate test and I felt his shoulder-in's were very respectable and that although he wasn't direct in the two canter-walk's, he was very calm and genuine about them. Turns out we got 43.6, which although isn't great and wasn't great in the section I was quite pleased. Especially considering it was an Int test with harsher int marking. I wasn't the worst either by a long way :D

I then had a FIVE HOUR gap before the Showjumping, which I was terrified about. I thought the novice SJ looked big, square and wide, and so was very nervous about the IN SJ which is 3'9''-4'0'' (1m15-1m20)!! They wacked it up, and added a jump to make a triple and added another upright. Mum tells me she thought it was huge and was feeling very green about it! Especially seeing as the first person had seven down and retired, the next had 24 penalties and someone else had 8.  In the end we had number 2 down, then the second part of the triple which we only slightly tapped (but they had very very thin light poles) and a big square oxer where he wasn't sharp enough in front. But he was fantastic down the massive final line in front of the grandstand! So 12 faults, but the SJ caused carnage and so 12 faults was pretty normal!

Then onto the very very wet Cross Country which he flew round!!! The ground was very wet and very deep so I kicked on, trying to get as few time pens as possible. But blimey he must have moved his legs quicker than normal because we came 9 seconds inside the time! Thrilled with him. I went to look at the score board and was shocked at the amount of time penalties, no one else in my section came home inside the time. And out of all the Novice and IN sections only 6 people were inside the time, and I was the fastest! I am shocked by this, as I didn’t take risks, I was safe at all the fences, but I just shaved off seconds where ever possible by cutting corners etc and getting quickly away from the fences!