April, should see longer days and spring weather, however, all we have had is rain and lots of it, resulting in events being cancelled all over the country!
At the beginning of April, we set off for Norfolk and the Musketeer Event’s Barefoot Retreats Burnham Market International; CHARLES RR was entered in the CIC***, and LAWA & NANKIN DES RUETTES in the CIC**! All settled in to the onsite stables and it was down to business,
Charlie did a lovely test with so much improvement for him. He was rewarded with a PB score at 3*! Super Nonks did his usual cute test to score 33.3, while Lawa also did a nice test but too many rusty mistakes crept preventing him get the score he’s capable of in the 2*.
Sadly have completed the dressage phase heavy rain overnight resulted in the jumping phases of the International classes being cancelled on safety grounds, the ponies were very grumpy not getting to go cross country, as was I having walked the course a couple of times, it was nice to see a few changes and I was pleased the coffin complex had been removed but it looked like being a decent 3* track and would have been a good pre Badminton fun for Charlie.
In between dressage and course walking I was Interviewed for Mark Todd Collection by Jonty Evans, discussing the winning of the Mark Todd Bridging the Gap Scholarship and also the preparations ahead of my Badminton Debut.
Back at home and with the entry in for Badminton in and accepted, the preparations have moved up a gear. Lots of people are starting to take interest in what I am up to which is both exciting and scary in equal measures, BBC Wiltshire have been over to the yard filming a small piece ahead of my Badminton debut, and I’ve done interviews for Horse and Hound and other local papers, its been full on!
We were very lucky to get a run at Larkhill, the week after Burnham Market, with almost every other event in the country abandoning due to water logged fields and continuous rain, Larkhill had done an amazing, and considering the amount of rain we’ve had the ground was in great condition.
After all the cancellations I decided Charlie could have Max’s run in the Novice to give him a run and keeping him ticking over after his two previous runs were cancelled. He jumped a lovely easy double clear. MICKS DILEMMA was a star finishing on his dressage to pick up 6th in the BE100, while ALVESCOT DANCE TIME also had a good run in the Novice.
With yet more rain, and more cancelled events, we headed North East to Grantham, Lincolnshire for the Belton International, CHARLES RR in the u25 Advanced, with everything crossed that event would run!
Bede Events need to be commended, they really did pull out all the stops and despite some very heavy rain the night before, the ground was in pretty near perfect condition, and Charlies gave me an AWESOME ride around a decent, technical cross country, he loved every second of it, my arms might be foot longer, but my eye is back in at this level and it was a great prep run ahead of Badminton in just a few weeks time.