The month started off the same as December ended, with snow and ice. We finally got rid of it around the second week of January. The task then was to try and bring back some fitness. Some schooling, lunging and a bit of hacking was needed but didn't manage to do any jump practice as the school and field were still quite hard and frozen.
I booked our first outing for the 23rd to go to Sparsholt for the Discovery class. Just when I thought things were improving letting me finally go somewhere, my lorry broke. The morning I was due to go I went to top up the water only to find out it was pouring out of the engine as fast as I was pouring it in. I am now waiting for my mechanic to shock me with how much it will cost to fix, hopefully not too much.
I did manage to eventually go somewhere the week after. I borrowed my sister's lorry and travelled down to Summerhouse on the 31st. It was very cold and frosty. For those of you who are not familiar with Summerhouse, it is outdoors on an all weather arena. The ground was still quite frozen by the time it was my class so had to be careful with his legs. I entered the Discovery as I was desperately trying to get that last double clear. I was very nervous as his hasn't seen a jump in 2 months let alone go to a show, hence he was quite spooky.
Charlie was a star, he was very forward and took me to every fence, not backing off once. Maybe went a little bit fast and a bit bold but we can work on that next time. He jumped lovely to get a double clear and 5th place. So now we are out of the Discovery class due to winning too much.
First aim of the year is now in the bag, and looking forward to trying for the other aims I have planned for the year. The JOINT POWER supplement must be working well at the moment as Charlie seems full of energy and wasn't bothered about the hard ground.
