We drove down on Thursday evening because we had very early time on the Friday and stabled on-site at Aston Le Walls because Jack's old owner/rider Emma Humphrey kindly chucked one of her horses out for the night to make space for Jack! I walked the XC and SJ that evening and was feeling very happy about it all!

The following morning Emma helped me warm Jack up for the Dressage and we did our best test yet. Although we basically got the same mark as at Hambleden last weekend (We got 38.6). Hey ho, I think it was much more established in the outline and more energetic! Although we did loose marks in our simple change because he literally halted rather than walking!! After the dressage I had a little chat with the Young Rider selectors etc about me, Jack my age and our plans etc. They seemed very nice!
A few stills from the video (Click to enlarge)

Next up was the Show Jumping, Having jumped a Foxhunter on him and up to 1m30 I didn't feel over faced by the course at all and didn't think it was that big. However because it was in their arena it was very twisty and the jumps came up very quickly. Because of this I slightly panicked at fence two and consequently had it down. However the rest was brilliant and Jack picked up his paws beautifully, so just the four faults. It turns out the course caused a fair amount of problems so the 4 faults wasn't too shabby!
Again a few stills from the video (Click to enlarge)

Video of the Dressage and Show Jumping:-

Finally the Cross Country! Flew fences 1, 2 and 3 out of a fab galloping rhythm and then popped very nicely over the big brush in the water. Kicked on over the narrow log pile wall and a double of houses at 6ab. Next up was a bounce of brush's up onto a bank and then left turn down over a skinny log. He was brilliant through that and then galloped on over a big open ditch brush. The next fence was a double of round top palisade type things where you jumped the left hand side of the first and the right hand side of the second. Saw a good shot and jumped through really well. (Picture below)

Then it was onto one of the harder combinations. A log at the top of a slope, then a right hand curve to part B a big corner. He popped the log sweetly, locked onto the corner and jumped it really well hardly wasting a second! Galloped on over a straight forward pheasant feeder and then back into the main field and angled the wagon slightly to save some time. (Picture below)

Nice long gallop stretch up a field and then flew a big brush at 14. Next up was 15abcd, a log, two steps down and then four fairly short strides to a big corner. He popped the log nicely, and went down the steps very boldly. Far more boldly than I anticipated after Hambleden last week, otherwise I would have killed the speed a bit more beforehand, this meant that we found the four strides to the corner very short and arrived on three and a half strides. Poor Jack couldn't get his legs up in time and hit it, twisted sideways and we landed with a bang on the floor the other side of it! Absolutely gutted as he was flying up till that point giving me a fantastic round and it was such a stupid error that could have happened on a pre novice track! So annoying, I think we would have finished in the top 15! Luckily Jack escaped without any injuries and he trotted up brilliantly this morning! I appear to have hit the deck very hard and am rather bruised. Unfortunately my head took rather a large bang and I was concussed. However no major injuries and I have a shiny new HS1 hat now!!!

Video of the fall can be seen below (please excuse how blurry it is, mum was a long way away!)

The original plan had been to give him 5 weeks off and then head to Longleat OI, however Longleat is quite a big intermediate and I don't really want to leave me and Jack festering for 5 weeks after a big crash! So we have entered Pontispool OI in two weeks to ensure he keeps his confidence up, and hopefully we won't make any silly errors and will get our QR for the Junior national Championships at Glanusk!