Competition picture (Darcy) courtesy of Equiscot. Other pics are personal of Betty, Vera & Rupert.
In our quest for Regional qualification Darcy saw herself head to Rockrose EC to do two more Elementary tests. She is growing up so fast, both mentally and physically....working in for the tests felt amazing. It makes all the early mornings & long days worthwhile when you get rides like this. To have her try so hard & be so focused made me feel very proud of her! The icing on the cake came in the tests....there were green moments but she won both tests with great %'s; 72.7% & 74.3%. Hopefully just another couple of competitions & she'll have all the points she needs for her Winter qualifications.
After a weekend off it was Darcy that headed out again. This time to Morris EC to finish🤞 her Novice Freestyle qualification & start her Elementary Freestyle qualification. Using music that both Colin & Plum have previously used it is becoming apparent that her competition nervousness is fast disappearing as the home floorplans now fit away from home!!
I was thrilled with her Elementary test as she had only learnt simple changes the week before & it was definitely the hardest test she has done so far....so 75.19% was super! She then did Novice Freestyle & it went rather well! So well in fact that she gave me a PB of 88.61%, lots of 9's & even a 10!!! Needless to say she managed to get her Novice qualification!!
Darcy & Humphrey headed to SNEC next on their mission of gaining Regional qualification. Both tackled harder level tests as well as Freestyles...Humphrey found it all a bit scary & shrunk away from me. Unfortunately at the more advanced levels this is harder to disguise but even with a few very low marks he still managed to gain 67.5%. He was a little more confident in the Freestyle & got 70.5%. Good news though & Advanced Medium Regional qualification was secured & he is now halfway there in the Freestyle. Miss Clever Clogs was great & rose to the challenge...72.19% in Ele59 & 75.58% in the Freestyle. She has now gained qualification at Novice & Elementary in both the straight & freestyle classes. With restrictions getting tighter & a possible lockdown happening again we made the most of still being able to train & compete. We were able to squeeze training in with Paul Hayler & also Carl Hester. It is almost 10 months since I last saw Carl & his first viewing of Darcy....I was slightly nervous!! Both Humphrey & Darcy were fabulous & really made me proud with how they went & what they achieved! Humphrey has now broken the 70% barrier in Advanced Medium. He did this at Rockrose EC where he also completed his Advanced Medium Freestyle qualification. Happy days as they have both completed their qualification goals for this year! On the baby(horse!) front I have some exciting news! I have a new yearling from the Caledonia stud, Viva Caledonia (Vera) by Valverde...she is stunning & has a very adult head on her young shoulders.
She joins the impressive yearling gelding I co-own with the Moray Firth Stud, MFS Rossetti (Rupert) by Revolution.
Last but not least Headmore Bella Luce (Betty) has also returned from being broken, her summer holidays & more recently being restarted & I look forward to riding this lovely 4yo. Thankyou Scott McLennan, Jonathan Lough & Rockrose EC for all they have done for her so far....now it's down to me - no pressure!!
Sadly Lockdown has hit again, 🤞fingers are firmly crossed that it'll just be for the predicted 3wks🤞.