A rather short lived day at Barbury with Sheepdrove Cariad starting, and as it turned out, ending, the day all on his own!

A respectable dressage followed by just 4 faults in a very grown up novice showjumping boded well. Muskateer have done a fantastic job with their 'revamped' Barbury site and now all the classes get to jump in the Silver Fox arena with its unique split level setup and a really educational outing for the novices in particular.

So as they headed off out over a pretty beefed up novice cross country hopes were high for the double who seem to be bonding more and more. Carrie bravely dealt with everything that came his way until the solid looking hedge at the bottom of the hill. Having been what is normally described as "well hunted" by his owner, Jane Gwillam-David Carrie has a pretty shrewd idea that there is often a sneaky ditch on landing of a hedge ( rarely eventing however!) so he threw in a massive leap which took everyone by surprise, including himself as the landing was a bit steep and a stumble followed as he regained his balance with the upshot being Sammi face planted fair and square into the pretty firm Barbury turf. Luckily the peak of her hat broke away as otherwise I think we would have needed some heavy lifting gear to remove her from said turf as she did impale upon it a a fair whack.

It's pretty certain Sammi has a broken nose which is going to turn into a spectacular looking array of colourful bruising by the end of the week. Even more sadly she has grass stains on her breeches which is never a good look going into a fuel station on the way home!

Calcourt Verona ( Ringo) and Calcourt Valley ( Kevin) were thus withdrawn and Sammi retired to the horse box to make some coffee on the hob. This she did before carefully closing the glass top and starting the pack up. Just as they were about to leave there was a spectacular explosion as Sammi hadn't turned the gas off so the entire cover exploded all over the living, luckily missing both Sammi and Hels (and sadly also missing Woofie as he wasn't there).

Hels then started to clean up the 5 million bits of glass whilst we debated if this action meant Sammi was unfit to drive the horses home. Ultimately we decided that since back in the day Sammi had once put the plastic kettle onto the gas hob in my horse box to boil with predictable results ( a burning smell, a ruined kettle and an indelible ring on the counter top which remained for evermore of a reminder) when she hadn't even got on a horse or had a drink we put it down to normal behaviour and waved her goodbye.

I do have a photo but in fairness Sammi looks so forlorn even I don't have the heart to put it up. Anyway, the one where she looks like Ed has had a word with her about cooking eggs later in the week will be far more fun!