Photo: Charlie returns from his trip to A&E last week with his broken metatarsal. (Its actually just a toe). In true normal mother fashion Sammi denied he had a problem until he reverted to crawling which is pretty odd for a three year old and then Ed took him to hospital just to get away from Sammi who was in a filthy mood. Such is childhood in a busy run of the mill family. This is the second photo as in the first, in which I thought was Charlie quite cooley giving me the bird, turned out to be of him with his finger shoved up his nose. The "losing the will to live" figure is Lyndon! I do like the fact that now Sammi lives on a building site she doesn't even undo her chin strap between rides.

In "hindsight" news Sammi did jump two lovely cross country rounds on Direct Tullyoran Cruise ( Tully) and Finduss PFB ( Louis) at Little Downham advanced last weekend before heading off to the lovely Ascot-Under Wychwood with the babies as well which I totally missed as while the UK basked in summertime I was sheltering from the wind and rain at Tattersalls in Ireland. A little more digging shows that it was just Direct Golden Girl ( GG) that went to Ascot for her first start with Sammi having had a few runs this spring with Izzy Taylor. Jocelyn Riley owns both GG and Tully so hopefully she is enjoying being part of the Birch team and fun to have horses at both ends of the eventing scale.

GG didn't do much wrong at WWEC with a 30 dressage, a pole and some time showjumping which whilst unusual at BE100 seemed to be a recurring theme for many riders at WWEC! The outdoor arena is pretty massive and with green horses it is very easy to make sweeping turns and use the whole arena which compared to the tiny grass arenas does make time faults a bit more predictable. A nice clear round followed over a cross country track which is always a bit more grown up than you expect ticked the boxes for a successful 'get to know you' weekend.

Kincooley Read My Mind ( Indie) has been with Sammi for the winter and she really is a beautiful mare. A 30 dressage for her before just tapping out a rail on what Sammi described as "not the kindest" showjumping track followed by a bravepants clear cross country round for 8th place and Indie's first rosette. Indie's idea of cross country at the moment is that since the fences are uber scary she needs to jump uber big over them which is something most desirable in a young horse when you are heading down to a fixed fence on half a tonne of baby horse.

Divine Idylle Dudevin is without doubt my new favorite baby. Not only does she look a little bit like a seahorse with a beautiful big eye and a stunning neck but she is also the perfect little package standing at barely 15.3. Her full brother is a rising star for Chris Burton and it was he who directed this mare towards Sammi as with the best will in the world Burto is always going to struggle on 15.3! Sammi's team call her Lady D but I think she is more suited to Dude as she really is quite special to look at!

Anyway, her debut event went well with another 30 dressage ( me thinks the judges sat on allot of 7's at WWEC!), a rail and a clear cross country to finish 10th. Lady D will be glad she found her first 100 to her liking as if she is going to make Le Lion D'Angers at the end of the year she is going to have to do a bit of fast tracking!

Susan Lamb has a new pony in the form of Jutopia which is KWPN bred and also pretty striking. 'Lola' was allowed to debut at 90 and I am sure the other competitors in the class were pretty happy that Sammi was HC as the dressage score of 16 meant Sammi would have been leading after the first phase. Even for Sammi, who regularly posts cracking dressage scores, this must be a record I think? Lola also managed to leave all the fences up which was a relief but she did add a couple of time. And then popped around the cross country track like she had done it all her life.

Sunday dawned with less wind but not much sun either and its back to coats and boots in the UK again. Sammi and her team found themselves returning to WWEC with more young horses although this crew seem positively old hands at the game compared to Saturday's lot!

Just three novices and Sheepdrove Carriad ( Carrie) showed that having a bit more work makes a big difference with a PB of 27.8 at just his second attempt at novice. Adding 5 in the SJ was pretty much the norm and another great clear cross country meant he finished his day very happy with himself.

Calcourt Valley ( Kevin) added to Sammi's WWEC dressage score tally with yet another 30 and although he didn't pick up any time he too added a pole to his score. The clears really were few and far between today! Sammi pretty much downed tools at this stage and having decided not to run the next two novices around a cross country track that Carrie had dealt with admirably but had admittedly "learned nothing in particular" she withdrew Kevin. Calcourt Verona (Ringo) therefore spent a day hanging out to post a 29 ( finally Sammi broke the 30 barrier!) and then was withdrawn from the showjumping so a pretty cruisey Sunday for those two.

Sammi has not lost her touch... when I saw a stack of Withdrawals on the last two horses of the day I assumed she had been trampled or had fallen off the ramp or stung by a wasp or some such drama. A swift phone call revealed that she had simply " had enough, I didn't like the showjumping and was not a fan of the novice cross country so I just withdrew them all".

Go Sammi. Don't you just love a Brat Stamp at the end of a couple of long days!