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A busy Aston le Walls with five horses over two days!

On Friday I had Rowena Orr’s Guiness and The Lilly Mill (Bunni) in the Novice.

Guiness is becoming Mr Consistent gaining another top 10 placing, finishing 5th with a 32, double clear just picking up a couple of time XC. Bunni did a beautiful test and was class XC but with missing two runs her lack of match practise showed in the SJ for a few down. She has since been SJ at Rectory Farm and jumped two fab clear rounds so onwards and upwards 😇

Saturday was a day of babies with Suzi Swete and Posy Knapp’s 4yos Kishkinder and Kei Frey and Suzi’s 6yo Rasta.

Star of the day goes to Kish who finished 9th with a 27 dressage, 4 faults and a super clear XC 🌟 The pole cost him 3rd, however as some of his breeding isn’t recorded he can’t qualify for Osberton so it wasn’t too costly! Kai did a lovely test for 28 but is still green jumping - his day will come! Rasta the super pony was running HC in the 90 for a 33, 4 faults and super XC - he’s really starting to learn his job.

Huge thank you to the team at Aston for such fab ground, my owners for giving me the opportunity to ride their lovely horses and to everyone who helped me over the weekend tackling extreme wind, rain and a small amount of sun!

Unfortunately the weather stopped play the following weekend at Somerford where Guiness was meant to be doing his first International. He heads to Gatcombe Intermediate next and Bunni heads to Keysoe Novice this Friday.

We will let you know how it goes!

After an eventful day at the FEI European Dressage Championships in Rotterdam, with a shock elimination for Charlotte Dujardin & Mount St John Freestyle following their brilliant test, the results have been confirmed. Defending champions, who score their victory in the Championships for the 24th time, are Germany with a combined total of 244.969! Two superb tests from Jessica von Bredow-Werndl (TSF Dalera BB) and Dorothee Schneider (Showtime FRH) yesterday were supported by two more strong performances today from Sonke Rothenberger (Cosmo) and Isabell Werth (Bella Rose) to put them 14.829 clear of the Dutch team in second place. Great Britain were sat in second and looked to be putting pressure on the Germans, but following a routine post-test inspection, FEI stewards discovered a small trace of flood on the flank of Mount St John Freestyle, the ride of Charlotte Dujardin, which resulted in elimination following the FEI rules. This caused Team GB to drop out of the medals to 4th. The 'home' team consisting of Anne Meulendijks (MDH Avanti NOP), Hans Peter Minderhoud (Glock’s Dream Boy NOP), Emmelie Scholtens (Desperado NOP) and Edward Gal (Glock’s Zonik NOP) put their best foot forward for a final score of 230.140 and a silver medal! In third were Sweden, just 0.217 behind. Antonia Ramel (Brother de Jeu), Therese Nilshagen (Dante Weltino OLD), Juliette Ramel (Buriel KH) and Patrik Kittel (Well Done de la Roche CMF) all performed stunning tests for the bronze medal!

The best result of all, however, was for the Irish team, who have made history by qualifying for next years Olympics in Tokyo, for the first time ever! As final team member Judy Reynolds entered the arena, Ireland were just outside of the Olympic qualifying places, so she knew she had to make Vancouver K dance like he'd never danced before! With the pressure of the nation on her shoulders, Judy displayed a fantastic performance to make history and set a new Irish record in the process! Team Ireland were lifted into the qualifying spot and head to Tokyo 2020!

Image credit: FEI, Isabell Werth on Bella Rose (GER)