Belated Bicton BS - Slap on wrist for not posting earlier!

As usual the last few weeks have been manic and I have been a little remiss on updating my blog, sorry!

Firstly we went British ShowJumping at Bicton Arena at Easter taking Ben, Millie and new addition Tilly (Ultimate Quest) who is a stunning mare owned by Sarah Worrel who i am hoping to event at Novice/Intermediate level this year. In addition Anita (Ben's owner) met us there with Archidamus, known on the yard as big Archie as at big 16.2hh he is slightly larger than the crazie connie of the same name.

To be honest with the terrible rain we all thought the jumping would be off, but the rearranged the classes into the two all weather arenas and as the sun was shinning we trundle down on Sunday. Unfortunately all my classes were in the rather tight 60m by20m dressage arena and as the format was 2 phase they squashed a good 15 fences in there. Furthermore the tiny grass warm up was so cut up it was like riding in plough and was defintely not suitable for jumping on so we had to resort to going into the clear round to warm up where the ground was a bit better costing £4 each time.

Quick summary was that mayhem seemed to reign the whole day with the horsebox a long walk away and just too many horses to fit into the classes and results were mixed to say the least. Millie had a silly 1 down in the British Novice and did not seem quite herself. Ben managed to get incredibly wound up with his mate Archie goading him on and as a result was like an unexploded bomb as he entered the arena for the discovery after only 5 minutes warm up. Jumping the first few tensely, he turned down the line to the double and just on take off dropped his shoulder so fast catapulting me into the air hands still holding the reins with such force that the bridle came clean off and then proceeded to eye up the outer fence to get back to Archie on the other side who Anita was trying to keep out of sight. Pete managed to catch it all on camera and just to show I post the bad as well as the good here it is for you all to see. Luckily it didn't hurt at all!

Fortunately the day did improve slightly from there. Big Archie just had the first fence down in the discovery solely due to lack of concentration before jumping clear and then jumped a beautiful double clear in the Amateurs Open to finish 5th. Tilly was rather tense and over jumping everything in the discovery just tipping a pole in the jump off due to me holding on to her a bit to tight. I therefore made the effort to relax my arms and body in the Open and she jumped superbly and also posted quite a fast jump off time to finish 2nd. Both Archie and her qualified for the Second Rounds later in the year.

Archidamus (Big Archie)

Ultimate Quest (Tilly)