Burnham Market
The lorry left home at midday on Friday for the trip to Norfolk. They arrived in good order after the 7 hour journey and settled in to the stables at the home of owner Catherine Joice for the night.
Burnham Market was suffering another wet and windy battering! The horses are being tested to the limit in the horrid conditions.
Chuck was 4th in the OI. He did a good test for a score of 33 and followed it up with a great double clear with 10 time penalties.
Cookie led the dressage on 27; show jumped clear and then had a cheeky run out on the XC at the hedge coming out of the water. Overall he went in a much more relaxed fashion than at Lincoln so I was happy with him.
Bart was doing his first 3*CIC and is leading the dressage on a score of 42. The XC will certainly test him. It will only be his second advanced run and has only had Tweselsown as his prep run some 3 weeks ago. I think the course is fair and he should cope well with it.
Tam is lying 5th on a score of 43 having had a few blips and spooks in the test. The quality of his work was pleasing given the conditions.
Ed is lying 3rd on a score of 42, he too had a few little blips but basically it was a very pleasing test.
The XC is holding up very well and I am hoping to run them all. Fingers crossed for no more rain but the forecast is not great.
The show jumping will be moved on to the all weather surface which is a great move. It will be interesting to see what they design as they will be tight on space. Everyone is doing their best to cope with the conditions. It is such a shame as this is usually the first big weekend of the season.
The weekend at Burnham Market continued well with Navigator holding on to his lead to win the 3*. Despite only intending to get a qualification for Bramham, and this was his first advanced run since last year, Navigator went as well as I could have hoped and showed what a classy horse he is.
Bart show jumped clear on the all weather arena which was pleasing over what was quite a difficult track and he cruised round the XC taking all the direct routes. His 9 time faults were just enough to keep him ahead of Clea Phillips which was a nice surprise.
Ed and Tam both had a very good day – Ed finished 4th with a competent double clear and Tam finished 8th having rolled a pole in the show jumping. It has been a long time since his last advanced run and it was fun to be back on him feeling so good.
Despite the ground being wet, the going was particularly good so I felt I could let them bowl along a bit and at this stage of the season the 8 and 9 time faults was fast enough. The prize fund for the World Cup was particularly appreciated and Alec and his team should be congratulated for securing such a deal and exciting for the future of Burnham Market to have such sponsors on board. Burnham Market has now really set a precedent which hopefully some other events might be able to follow.
Somerley
We had a very exciting day and I managed to score my first win of the season even though it was only novice. Wait a Minute led his section from the start and finished on a score of 27. He is really going well now and his consistency is impressive. The show jumping was still pretty tough and I was particularly pleased with how well he coped with the ground.
Bay Tokay finished 2nd – 8 marks behind Wait A minute. He did a very pleasing test but one fence down was expensive and he gave me a good feel cross country - that gives him 5 points which means he does not upgrade luckily.
Oslo had a very good day and having had 4 double clears and 4 points – I let the handbrake off a bit and although he got 4 times faults he finished 3rd – he was surprised by the change of gear but I felt he was ready to have more of a crack now. He did a good test and show jumped particularly well in the mud which was particularly satisfying.
The Somerley team did a super job and ran a huge number of horses which a few days ago would have looked pretty much impossible the only dodgy ground was in the show jumping but they very sensibly kept the jumps on the small side
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Moon Man was having his first run of the season and was glad to be out and about – he did a 31 dressage, got a bit stuck in the mud in the show jumping and had a pole down and flew round the xc in inside the time – it was excellent to be riding him again and it was good for me to go abit quicker round the course for the first time this season!
Macchiato was a little more relaxed than he had been at Tweselsown and got a 34 in the dressage and then jumped a good double clear, well; apart from the last fence XC which I actually ended not jumping due to a broken girth strap.
Bee Animas did another very pleasing double clear, his dressage was not quite as flash as Tweseldown but it was plenty good enough – just too lively in parts.
Neuf des Coeurs was having his first intermediate run this season and had a very satisfying day – he led the dressage on 29 and then he show jumped with one down despite the awful going. I took him quietly cross country and he went very well xc, took it all in his stride but got a few time faults.
The going was remarkably good but as ever the show jumping got quite tacky and a lot of less experienced horses really struggled towards the end of the intermediate sections.
