The return of Carraig Dubh......

The day had finally dawned and Danny was ready to return to competition. He had been thoroughly checked by the vet, we had been to Tina Cooks and been put through our paces to test his leg, he had been galloped, built up his lateral work and jumped on hard ground but we had not done any cross country. He didn't need to, he knows his job and we didn't want to run him necessarily. For those of you who don't know, Danny was injured and shattered his splint bone at Tweseldown, after his best ever dressage of 26.5 and just a pole in the sj we were one of the leaders going into the cross country which is where our world fell apart. So you can probably guess we were all slightly on edge for his first event since May. After a busy weekend of eventing at Aston Le Walls and a lot of driving Mum was very pleased to hand over the steering wheel to Gary Stevens who came along to drive and help for the day.

My day started by sleeping through the alarm which was set for 4am and then I got a fright when Mum woke me up at 4.30am. We still managed to do the other horses and leave on time by 5.30. The journey involved only one slight detour with road closures and then a lot of laughing between Gary and Mum at my expense over Lollypop Ladies. I live in the country OK! I have never seen one in real life! Apparently they do exist and not just in films, though Gary and Mum wanted to know which film exactly I had seen one in!!!

We arrived in Wiltshire in plenty of time and as it turns out Gary is the fastest studder upper there is! So I had loads of time to warm up. Danny felt good. I expected some bucking and bronking and general excitement of being out again but he acted like the true professional. I haven't actually had any flat work lessons on him since end of April so I was jolly pleased when the dressage judge marked us at at a fabulous 27, the second best dressage mark he has ever got.

Having plenty of time(3 hours) between dressage and showjumping we had breakfast and then walked the cross country course. Although it was quite hard it had a lot of ground cover and we were happy to run him. The course was up to height with a few combinations but nothing that concerned me.

Just before we were due to go to showjumping we bumped into Christopher Berry who had recently moved from our village to Wiltshire, it was so good to see him and yes Christopher I do still want your horse!

Showjumping was a little bit of a bun fight in the warm up, it was good to have Gary there as his discipline is showjumping and he will jolly well tell me if he thinks I am riding badly! He is also great to have in the warm up. I actually think we hit every stride but my god was Danny strong, I did struggle with brakes! But he jumped everything with loads to spare and we jumped a clear.

We went straight down to cross country. I was expecting Danny to be strong at the start but he was a bit hesitant. I think he lost a bit of confidence after Tweseldown but after fence 5 and he knew it wasn't going to hurt and he got into his stride. I never rode him for the time so we got oodles of time penalties. It was always going to be quiet run. He didn't puff a bit and his legs were stone cold and sound. So so pleased. We finished on a double clear.


Sooooo.......... bring on Wellington. Our first Intermediate together. Ok so he is a pro, but this is my first ever Intermediate and I cannot wait!