After a few weeks break we were back out in force at Frickley Park. We hadn’t run for at least four weeks, mainly as I wanted to save Kayla’s legs as we had been selected as the First Reserve on the Northern Squad for the BE National U18 Championships at Frickley Park.

Whilst we didn’t get our call up, I was delighted to be there with the squad for the whole week, the experience was invaluable! We ran later in the week as an individual, delivering a great test but its fair to say my nerves got the better of me, I just felt numb…..it was definitely an off day in the saddle for me and in this sport its happens to the very best.

The following weekend we ran at Hendersyde near Kelso in the Scottish Borders and we were ready to give it our best! I was thrilled to be leading the U18 section on our personal best dressage of 28.0 this season but bad luck returned when I was informed that I had a technical error on course cross country, crossing my tracks, a first for us and the numb feeling returned! Put it this way it was a long journey home since we had been on the road since 4.00 am, but another hard but good lesson learnt which should hopefully serve me well for the future.

During the week of the Pony Europeans, I was thrilled to be invited to a training session with Caroline Moore, the National U18 Coach up in Northumberland. We had a great session, jumping a very big and technical course, in readiness for our run at Dalkeith.

With confidence levels back on track, we headed over to Dalkeith, near Edinburgh for our next run and probably one of our biggest tracks by far. Once again Kayla blew us all away, giving me a fantastic ride finishing on our dressage score of 29.8 to secure THIRD place – I was over the moon!

In between eventing Kayla, I’ve also had Max out and about competing and I’m thrilled with his progress. Disappointingly due to mechanical issues, we never made it to the Pony Club Championships at Cholmondeley Castle, in Cheshire. We didn’t just break down once but twice on our way, it just wasn’t meant to be but I was thrilled that my pony club team performed well.

Its now on to Somerford Park for us next for three days training with Jonquil Hemming and we’ll be keeping everything crossed for a safe trip.

-Jessica Burnham

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