Everyday last week at 7.30am I headed down to Lancing for 4 hours of LGV driver training around Brighton, Hove, Portslade and Worthing. As many people know I am not the tallest person in the world so I did get quite a few strange looks driving an 18 tonne lorry. The driving went well and I will take my test in a few weeks.
That left only the afternoons to get ridden and prepare for another busy weekend ahead. With VERY civilised times on Saturday we managed to get 5 horses ridden in a group hack before setting off to South of England Horse Trials with Elvis in the Novice. I had already walked the cross country course the night before as the venue is so close to the yard so I was well aware what was waiting for me! We had a lovely group of people that had come to support Elvis and I and the weather was kind to us in the afternoon so it was a really lovely day out.
With a not-so-amazing dressage I went into the show jumping, which was causing enough problems, with a level head. Elvis was jumping out of his skin in the warm up so I was confident. I had seen where horses were spooking and was ready for Elvis to react. Well it turned out I had good reason to not be worried as he jumped a beautiful clear round. I am over the moon how well his jumping has improved as I know he is more than capable. We then made a quick turn around at the lorry into our cross country kit. I am lucky to wear the Dainese Balios level 3 body protector from Arka Equipe which is a very high safety standard as well as being super comfy. Since August last year Elvis has been wearing EQU StreamZ bands which have aided his overall improvement. His chiropractor quoted that she had never seen Elvis in such good shape.
In the cross country warm up Elvis wanted everyone to know that in fact he should have been lining up at Aintree for the Grand National (which he would probably fly round!!) as it took Ellie and Mum to lead him into the start box. He was definitely in brat mode!! After a minor battle over fence 1 and 2 which ran directly past the warm up ring, we were absolutely flying! He does love his cross country and he is always looking between the red and white flags. He stormed round the tough track and I barely had a chanced to look at my stopwatch. Much to my relief we were only 3 seconds over the optimum time. It wasn't until we saw the scoreboards we realised how many time faults people were getting.
We were so delighted Elvis had jumped a double clear and his speedy cross country round meant we climbed all the way up the leader board and ended up in podium position with a 3rd place and in the money!! This is a pb result for Elvis and he now has his first 4 BE points!
You can view his show jumping and cross country if you click this link.
Many thanks to Nigel Goddard from KS Digitial Photography for taking some wonderful photos on the cross country course of the jump - step - jump combination. Don't forget Nigel is now taking commissions for home photo shoots so make sure to get in touch with him for some gorgeous Spring setting photographs with you and your beloved steed!
More photos from the day at SOE can be viewed on my facebook page Melissa Joannides Eventing.
More beautiful weather on Sunday meant we were treated to a second day out, this time at the HDRC Hunter Trial at Coombelands. I went ahead and walked the course and then Mum met me there with Sam and Twiggy on board. Sam was in the Open Novice at 11.25am. However they were running behind time so he just chilled out before his round. He went on to do a very calm and pleasing clear round with no problems whatsoever. In the huge class we came an amazing 10th place! I must have timed the round pretty well.
We then enjoyed a wonderful lunch created by my Grandmother who had come along for the day and we were also joined by the lovely Sue Bendelow. Ellie was competing on Twiggy in the afternoon so we had some spare time. It was nice to catch up with lots of friendly faces at the local event and many thanks to HDRC for putting on a great competition.