At Aston I had four first time rides in the BE100, Bondi Beach, Caeleste, Burtonhill and Togo De Kerser. All four went extremely well, all jumping double clears.
Burtonhill was having his first and only run with me, as I was deputising for his owner/rider Tor Verdin, who had just had a baby. Burt did a lovely test to score 28 and gave me two lovely rides in the jumping phases. He was my first ride of the new season and I obviously hadn’t blown my cobwebs away as we picked up 1.6 time faults (I thought I was going fast!!) this was all good enough however for 6th place. I wish Tor all the best with him and hope they have lots of fun together.
Togo De Kerser is a new ride for the season, he was previously ridden and produced by Sammi Mcleod. Togo got a little tense in his dressage and became a bit behind the bit which stopped him gaining the marks he is capable of. He scored a 37, he made up for it how ever with two foot perfect jumping rounds.
Caeleste is another new ride for the year. She is a lovely laid back mare at home and has been very relaxed at all the things I have taken her to over the winter, but she came out at Aston a little over excited!! The loudspeaker definitely got her pretty wound up, she did a nice test, but not the test I know she is capable of. She still managed to score 31.5 though. Although still a little up tight and unsettled she still produced a great double clear and finished 5th.
Bondi Beach was the star of the show, he is another new ride for 2013. He produced a lovely test to score 28 and then produced a lovely double clear to win his section. He felt very grown up in both jumping phases and gave me a great ride cross country. Here is a photo of his fab cross country round:
Photo courtesy of MDR Photography
I was back to Aston on the Monday with Andrassy Echo doing the unaffiliated Pre-Novice. This was around exactly the same tracks as Saturdays BE100. Kermit did a really nice test, but I gave him a little too much warm up and he was a bit flatter than he can be, but I was still really happy with him. He then jumped a lovely clear in the show jumping and was extremely good cross country, being very bold and grown up!! He finished in 7th place and is looking forwards to his first affiliated run.
