I had Persimmon doing the CIC*** and Mo Cuiske doing the CIC** at Barbury.
Persimmon was doing his first CIC*** and was outstanding, especially as he is just eight years old. It is lovely to be able to compete at such an amazing venue and it is fabulous for owners to be able to watch the whole cross country course so easily.
Persimmon had an early draw and did his test on Thursday. It was quite a blustery day, but he coped well and did a very good test with just a few green mistakes. He scored 38.2 which left us in 4th place.
Persimmon didn’t show jump until Saturday and he jumped a fabulous clear and moved up to equal 3rd.
The cross country was run in reverse order of merit so we had a long wait on Sunday. Persimmon absolutely flew round the cross country and didn’t feel green or notice the step up to three star at all. As he is so young I didn’t push him too much for the time and we picked up a few time faults. This dropped us a place to 4th, but I was thrilled with his performance in what was a very competitive section.
Mo Cuiske was doing his first CIC**. He also did his test on the Thursday in the wind. He didn’t cope very well in the blustery conditions, he found the flags flapping and atmosphere a bit too much. He scored a 59.7 which was a little disappointing.
Show jumping didn’t quite go to plan either. He jumped well, but was quite fresh and didn’t quite concentrate and had a couple down.
As it was firm and we weren’t in a competitive position we just ran slowly cross country. He gave me a lovely ride and didn’t find any of the tricky combinations hard.
