Gatcombe -Saturday

It was quite a good day at Gatcombe yesterday with both horses jumping a double clear. 

However the day started with drama in the show jumping with Atlantic Vital Spark, as far as he was concerned we were very good he jumped a lovely clear round, but half way around the course my chin strap came undone.  What do you do?  I know that when the chin strap comes undone you are eliminated but I was rather expecting them to ring a bell and stop me so that I could do it up and then carry on, if I had stopped on my own and taken two hands off the rsigns to do it up I think I would probably have left the arena or turned 10 circles, so I realised my day was over for want of a better expression!  So I carried on and was obviously eliminated, they did very kindly allow me to go cross country, normally with an E you can't carry on. And they also checked with British Eventing that his result would count as an MER qualification which it does.  So the good thing is he has now got his first clear Intermediate under his belt which will allow him one step closer to qualifying for Osberton.

It raises the questions as to whether I should have been stopped by the bell beceause there is no competitive advantage to being stopped and yet it was a little unfair for me to have carried on.  It is the first time it has happened in my career.

He then gave me a superb ride cross country, it wasn't a very difficult course but there was lots to learn with combinations and the undulations, and he was nice and straight and very competent.

Yes I Can jumped a lovely fluent clear show jumping, he was very rhythmical and always on the right leg, which as you know i celebrate with him.  Th cross country was the biggest he would ever have done being his first technical Advanced, and he coped very easily with all the questions, he was very honest on the line and very confident.  And I went dead slow amazingly luckily he got 34.8 time faults and the cut off for qualification is 35.  He has now got his Advanced qualification, and he is technically a grown up.

The Gatcombe team had done an amazing job in spiking and aerating the land and it has really taken the sting out, but it is still bone dry and hard ground so I was dead slow on my two horses, and I think you would very much have needed a hard ground specialist to let the hand brake off like some people did.