Swalcliffe Park & Lincolnshire

And yes, it's still raining and yes, it's still muddy. Swalcliffe Park can add considerable wind to that as well but on Saturday three of the younger horses were just happy to be out eventing.

Direct Golden Girl (GG) was 5th with a 28 dressage, a clear round showjumping and as she left the start box for cross country she definitely engaged 4 wheel drive and powered her way around which left Sammi slightly out of her comfort zone ( comfort zone for our Sammi is having about 10 time at 90/100 level) with 4 faults and I think she may be upgrading from the current fat snaffle option! MGH Capa Vilou (Pattie) has a lovely name and a lovely nature and despite only having a couple of starts last year coped admirably well on her first outing with Sammi for 10th place in the 90 Open. Pattie would have been placed several places higher if Sammi had not hacked around for 7.2 time whilst of the 9 horses above her the next highest time was 2 so you get my point about comfort zones.

Jutopia (Lola) did a very smart 25 dressage and executed a really super classy showjumping round for a clear. They set off cross country and all was going swimmingly until Lola slipped on the turn to the water and was unable to take off. This knocked her confidence as she is a really careful young horse and so a second fault took her out of rosette zone but she's got a bit of girl power under her bonnet and she got the job done to jump in and complete the course. Its all about learning on the job and it's not easy when you are slip sliding in the mud!

Sunday saw Sammi and Hels trek off to Lincolnshire in search of that elusive first run for Hunter Valley (Gizmo). An early start was not the problem but to be greeted by another mud bath of dressage arenas was not what Sammi had been hoping for. Giz disdainfully tiptoed his way around the edges of the mud as best he could ( to be fair he is a proper Aussie boy and mud has never been his thing) and a score of 70% was not one of his best. Sammi walked the track, apparently got a blister and then decided to pull the plug as the going was not going to be fun and the showjumping warm up wasn't very pretty either.

So Giz now thinks he goes eventing for the bore of slogging round a muddy 20 by 40 with none of the fun and Sammi and Hels had a long drive home having not achieved that much. But, as Sammi pointed out, the family pet is in one piece and that is as good as it gets right now!