Dressage went fairly well. He just anticipated the walk to trot transition as in same place as the walk to canter in the Advanced we've been doing so it wasn't clear but a nice solid 28.
SJ he was fab! I messed up one distance but he saved me and we got an elusive clear with a lovely rhythmical round, one of those where all the fences come up on nice distances and no dodgy, awkward jumps.
XC walked tough! Borde Hill is always tough but it walked super tough! Fence 4 came up all of a sudden round a tree and was a big table brush affair - kick on! Then 5 was a flower bed to seriously meaty wide left corner on 2 strides. Thank god for a well placed large xmas tree to keep us on line!. Fence 8 was a humongous picnic table then there was another whopping brush spread thing at 10 before a naughty bright duck tucked into the hedge on the right and followed by a green, slimy swamp. Few let up fences then fence 15 was a nasty half coffin with chunky skinny log on a downwards slop with the ditch 3 strides later - same number fence as the coffin at Badminton and really not very nice for a horse who doesn't like coffins on slopes! Get through that and the next fence was one of those horrid airy thin hanging logs on another downwards slope under the trees followed by another big of green, slimy swamp! Get through all this and I reckoned we were ok! 5mins36secs and lots of hills plus the heat - it was gonna be a challenge.
So, off we went. He was flying. Made nothing of fences 1 to 10. Then I just didn't quite regain any kind of control before the duck, didn't have him between hand and leg and a good stride away he made the decision to nip out to the left - never in danger of falling off as he decided so early he wasn't doing it but very naughty of him. Jumped it fine 2nd time. Next challenge was the coffin - bit sticky but somehow we got over the log. He's not worried about the ditches when he gets to them so not sure why he has such an issue with part a. Round to the final challenge - he felt sticky 2 strides out so I sat up and for the first time in a competition actually took hand off reins and gave him a smack on the bum. Think it was very good I did as he basically climbed over the first element, tipping me forwards, thought about going left but I sat up just in time to save myself from a slimy dip and kicked on. As predicted he made the rest of the course feel easy and finished 2secs inside the optimum time despite the stop and me not pushing him afterwards.
Massive table at 8:
First 3 fences:
Very frustrating as would have been 4th without the stop XC. Naughty orange monster!
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