It’s been great start to the Eventing Season for me and my new ride Duffy and I’m delighted to be working with Millbry Hill for another year!

Our first run of the Eventing season started at Great Witchingham International in sunny Norfolk.

I was slightly anxious for our first event as we had only trained on grass the once but I was itching to put mine and Duffy’s fairly new partnership to the test.  Great Witchingham is a lovely traditional event, the ground was perfect and the sun shined the whole weekend.  It was our first long arena dressage test and a full up beefy cross country track.  I was under strict instructions from Tanya Buckingham, Millbry Hill Supported Rider and my coach, to take it steady so I hung onto her every word and did exactly that to deliver a respectable dressage test and a lovely double clear.  I was over the moon to secure our first confident run together.

We ran the following week at Epworth to secure 6th place with a lovely double clear and felt much more confident in finding Duffy’s gears –  in fact too much as we gained a few reverse time faults which dropped us down the leader board – whoops!

Last week, we competed in our first U18 class at Breckenbrough, Thirsk together.  With a rather excitable Duffy, who certainly loves Eventing as much as I do, we delivered our personal best dressage of 29.8 with a few silly errors and a super double clear.  Those who know Duffy, she is not a mare who wants to hang about but I negotiated with her to take our cross country round steady due to a few technical combinations on course, so gained a few time faults dropping us down from 3rd place to a respectable 10th!

It’s very early days in our new partnership, but ever since the moment I sat on her I knew she was the one as she gives you the most awesome feeling when riding her, always aiming to please no matter what!

The following day we headed to Somerford Park in Cheshire for two days intense training.  The weather was hot, Mum was burnt to a frazzle and both horses were on fire.  A successful trip – result!

The next couple of weeks are a little more quiet for me and my ponies with preparation for our next round of competitions, a bit of affiliated ‘stressage’ and some cross country schooling as I’m keen to get Max’s first run under our belts. Not long to go!

Having said all the above, it is after all just the beginning of the season and I’m already praying for a bit of rain as the ground is already hard.

That’s all for now – Jess

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