We’ve certainly been busy these past few months, the last weekend in July saw us at Trailblazers championships with both Ruby and Norbert.

It was a successful weekend with Ruby coming 5th out of 22 in N27 putting us through to the championship final on the Sunday. The championship test on the Sunday was N30, which is one of my favourite Novice tests to ride. A fluent test left us 3rd out of 31 with 67.5%, which is our best result to date there as we have never got through to the championship final. Norbert did pleasing tests both days, not the scores we were expecting but he managed to stay between the boards – which was the main goal for him, after having visions of him running through everyone’s tests in the other arenas!

The 15th of August was a winning day at Port Royal for Ruby in all three of her tests! Receiving 72.58% in the Pony Club Intermediate Dengie First Round Qualifier, 70.19% in N30 and 66.4% in E42, qualifying for Trailblazers 2nd Rounds for 2019 and receiving two 9’s! After having the cold snowy winter at the start of the year, we thought it would be best to get any qualifications before the weather sets in.

Sheepgate U25’s was a successful one for the Northern Novice Team with the team placing 2nd with us only one point behind the Welsh Team! Ruby went amazing all weekend coming 6th in the Novice Freestyle to Music with 68.06%, 7th out of 35 with 67.58% in the N38 Team Test and 11th overall individually out of 35.

A quick turnaround, led to the Coloured Horse and Pony Society Championships at Arena UK, which is our 4th year attending. On the first night we had the Dressage to music and the top 10 of the performance awards for 2018. Our music test certainly wasn’t the most energetic with a rather opinionated Ruby finishing 5th with just over 68%. We won the affiliated dressage performance awards, 2nd in the unaffiliated dressage and finishing 2nd overall in the performance awards! On the second day Ruby did an accurate and consistent test to win and become the Prelim Dressage Champion for 2018. The last two days Ruby came 1st and 2x5th in both her showing classes respectively with foot perfect shows including some of our dressage movements.

The 9th of September led to a decision British Dressage (BD) to collect points for Winter Regionals or the last Horse of the Year Show Qualifier. BD won and we were booked into N30 at Bishop Burton College, to try and pick up some points before our lorry goes in for 3 weeks in October meaning I miss part of the qualifying period! We got a qualifying score of 67+% to pick up 4 points, finishing 2nd in the silver section and overall. We now just have 6 points to obtain by the end of November, in order to qualify for Winter Regionals 2019.

Courtesy of Musto and Millbry Hill I’ve received the Performance Sleeveless Stock Shirt and the British Equestrian Federation Sardinia BR1 Jacket, which I’m looking forward to wearing in the wet weather and for competing.

Next Month I’ll cover the first ever BD Nettex CHAPS Associated Championships, British Dressage National Championships and picking up our new arrival Hollingthorp Samaras Supremacy aka Rosy.

-Victoria Turner

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