I had Persimmon in the CIC*** and Ceylor LAN in the ERM CIC*** section.
Persimmon didn’t quite feel himself in the dressage and did a disappointing test for him, he scored 51.7. It’s very unlike him to go the way he did in the arena as he is so strong in this phase usually.
He then jumped a great clear in the show jumping, although he jumped well I still felt he wasn’t his normal self so withdrew him from the cross country as it wasn’t worth risking him if he was under par. Watch our round here:
Ceylor LAN did a stunning test in the ERM section. He did his best work to date in the arena and was awarded some super marks including a perfect 10 for his halt before his rein back. This was particularly satisfying as we have been working really hard on his halts at home. He scored a personal best at the level for both he and I taking neatly 9 marks of his previous best! He scored a 32.9 which put us 4 marks ahead of the rest of the field. Watch our test here:
He then jumped an immaculate clear in the show jumping. He gave everything so much room I was nearly worried we would get a time fault as he spent so much time in the air! His great clear gave us a six point lead going into the cross country.
Watch our round here:
Cross country was run in reverse order, so when we started circling the start box there was no one left in the warm up. Unfortunately a combination of this and the massive crowd gathered round the big screen at the finish (right near the start) with Alice Fox-Pitt giving some great live comentry it all got a bit to much for Ceylor LAN and he was very reluctant to start. We got going in the end, but having jumped fence one already 44 seconds over the time I knew I was never going to make that up round a hill track like Chatsworth.
Although our poor start was hugely disappointing once we got going Ceylor LAN was foot perfect round the track and gave me a beautiful ride and was nearly perfect in all three phases so we went home dissapointed not to have won but very encouraged by his performance.
