ecs
Well-Known Member
earlier this year i posted how sad i was that our last year in ponies had begun. Well its been a good one culminating in our trip to scope, we set off last Saturday arrived just before lunch and got settled. First class Junior Discovery Champs prelim, both ponies qualified for the Championship arena, we were so pleased. Up at 6.30 Monday to let them have a look around the big scary arena, but both ponies were fine, they had to jump early evening, and the place was packed, they jumped fantastic and chantelle rode like a star, never missing and getting her lines spot on, both were in the jump off. There was no point holding back the jump offs are all or nothing at this place, so the decision was made to have a go, bailey jumped amazing but had the last fence, so it was up to spirit with the crowd screaming they set off at a good pace got the twisty bits out of the way and opened the throttle, we could not believe it they had the reserve championship. The next couple of days, things went well Bailey was placed in a Adventurer prelim, and Bess in a progressive prelim, with entries of over 200 ponies this was very respectable, then the British Novice Final, qualified both Bess and Spirit first try, with 12th and 8th place respectively, we were elated. We gave them Friday off and did not jump the second prelim for BN Saturday morning dawned, and a scary moment Spirit was not in his stable! After heart failure, we found him in another stable, he had escaped in the night and been put in a different stable. 8.30 start for BN final, Bess jumped like a star clear again, she only touched one pole (in a progressive prelim) all week. Spirit tapped last part of combination, so finished on 4 faults. Bess was first to go in jump off she is only 5, and we did not expect too much, but she was unbelievable, a reasonably fast clear, (the fences by now were at least 1.10). We could not have been happier when she finished 4th. (she would have been faster if she had not spent so much time in the air) We decided we had 3 very tired ponies that had given their all so did not do the progressive, consolation and spent the rest of the day watching and learning, finally crawling into bed at 11.30 when the jumping had finished, only to get up crack of dawn and drive home, very tired but very pleased.
