Wilton 2019

Wilton Horse Trials Novice

This weekend we went to Wilton. We had an 8.30am dressage so it was an early start! I always love Wilton and did the BE 100 on Pepper last year where we came 8th. The cross country is big and bold and you feel like you’ve ridden a proper course afterwards.

The dressage went okay(ish), she was a little monkey in our serpentine as you have to let them stretch which she is normally quite good at. Except on our second loop she decided that there was a tiger behind E and spooked and broke into canter… naughty! After that I managed to settle her and I was pleased with a 38.3.

The course for show jumping looked good and we would have been clear if I hadn’t ‘missed’ badly at fence 3 not giving her any option but to take the top rail out! She was pinging and nearly jumped me off her at one point. We still haven’t achieved our clear round at novice yet but it was all my fault.

There were a couple of questions cross country that I wasn’t too sure about. Fence 4 was a double of skinny houses on a slight curved 2 stride and a double of corners where you could jump right or left again on 2 strides. I always worry that I wont have the control I need to let her read this kind of question. However I shouldn’t have worried, she was dead straight and jumped these 2 questions the best of all the fences! We went clear with 9 time faults so am supper pleased once again with my pony she just takes everything on and trys so very hard for me. I couldn’t ask for a better horse to be sat on.

Thanks again to Michelle for coming and helping me!

Going to give her a quieter few weeks now as August is busy with camps at WHL. I am planning on doing the CCI S2^* at Gatcombe in September but would like one more novice run before then. Also as we haven’t yet achieved our double clear at novice am still eligible to do a BE 100 regional final so might try one of those…