Out in Tattersalls I had Creevagh Cooley doing the CCI* for six and seven year old horses and Ceylor LAN in the CCI***.
Both horses were outstanding all week and came home with the most exciting results.
Ceylor LAN at only 8 years old was competing in his first CCI*** and couldn’t have gone any better in my wildest dreams. He is still green and inexperienced at this level and was going to Tattersalls to try and get his Olympic qualification. He did a super tests in which he stayed forwards, through and swinging. He made a few small errors but did some brilliant work. He scored 42.3 which put us in 4th place going into the cross country.
Watch our test here:
The cross country course was big, bold and challenging, but Ceylor LAN answered every question set out in front of him with ease. He kept an lovely rythm and made the track feel remarkably easy, I picked up 3.6 time faults as I was conscious of not over pushing him. The last thing I wanted was for him to feel tired or to have a bad experience. The course caused plenty of trouble and even with our few time faults we moved up to 2nd going into the show jumping.
Watch our round here:
He then jumped an absolutely foot perfect round in the show jumping, he didn’t feel at all tired and the cross country certainly didn’t seem to have hindered him in anyway for this final phase. I was delighted with him and couldn’t have asked for more. I wasn’t watching Andrew Nicholson jump as I felt he was a dead cert to win so was completely gob smacked when someone came running up to say that we had won as Andrew had had a fence down!! Everything is still sinking in and I still can’t believe that my exceptionally talented Ceylor LAN has won his first CCI*** at only 8!!
Watch our round here:
I really can’t thank UK Sport and the funding I recieve through the lottery enough. Their added support has made a huge difference to me. I also owe a huge thanks to my amazing owners, sponsors, Toggi, Topspe, Woof Wear, Wow Saddles, Champion, Mole Valley, Yeoman Haylge, Equiclass, Aqueos and Flying changes and my fantastic team. None of this would be possible without you.
Creevagh Cooley was competing in her first three day event, she did a lovely test and showed some real promise. She is still big and weak and struggles to keep control of her powerful paces in the arena, but I was thrilled with the work she produced. She scored a 48.3, which put us in 16th place going into the cross country.
Watch our test here:
The cross country was not overly testing for the CCI* and as Creevagh Cooley had just been competing in Intermediates this spring she found the course rather small! She gave me a great ride and finished easily inside the time to move up to 12th place going into the show jumping.
Watch our round here:
The top 15 were all very close so I was very aware that a clear round could potentially move us up a long way. Creevagh Cooley jumped her socks off and jumped a beautiful clear which moved us up to a fantastic 5th place!
Watch our round here:
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