Another successful outing for Sam Penn at South of England

It's been another busy week for us with a 2-day Steven Hadley jumping clinic here at Golden Crossin which I rode Lite My Fire (Lulu) and Boundalong (Muffin). Steven has made the long trip down to Sussex several times now and as always the sessions were extremely helpful, keeping me on the straight and narrow, and making sure I dont develop too many bad habits now that I am out x-countrying again. Lulu made life rather difficult for both of us, I still dont think we have found the ideal bitting solution for her yet, and Muffin was exceptionally full of herself especially on the first day but both girls settled down to the task and were much improved by day 2.

Friday we made the first of our trips to Ardingly Showground as Tickeridge had day before dressage, he is getting to know that being plaited up now means he is going to a party, and so made life rather difficult for the girls to get him ready by jumping up and down and squeeking! But he is a total pro when he gets in the arena and scored a 27.

Saturday morning began as something of a disaster, due to leave the yard with 3 ponies by 6.45 my groom for the day didnt turn up and so I eventually departed by myself nearly 30 mins late. Fortunately my first horse in the arena that morning was Brockley Star, who was also being taken to the event by his owner Vicky Whiteman who had him all ready for me to just jump onto. Broccoli is such a lovely honest character, having his first attempt at a BE100, he just gets on with the job and earned himself a dressage mark of 30. Next up was Tigga's jumping, the ground was pretty sticky and many horses were finding it difficult to adjust after warming up on the all weather surface but Tigga took it all in his stride and jumped a lovely round. His xc started out really well, he is not the quickest horse, mostly because he is a little too relaxed about proceedings, but he seems to be improving each time out, and for the first time he really took a hold around the first half of the course. Coming back past the start he was definately distracted and started to 'hang' left in the direction of home but with a few sharp reminders we continued out onto the second half, the ground here was considerably more holding and he never really got back into his earlier rhythm although he continued to jump everything well and we picked up 3.6 time faults, although this still compared well against most others in the section. I am pleased that he is feeling a little bit more keen each time out. He won the section by 2 marks, but even better the win has put him on top of the BE Foundation Points League for the whole of the UK.

Broccoli also excelled himself in only his 3rd ever event, rider error gave us 4 faults in the showjumping but he flew round the xc without a seconds hesiation anywhere to finish in second place, its under discussion whether there is another event at which I may be able to ride him but his owner Vicky is hoping to be fit and ready to ride again in time for Borde Hill in May.
Nyala was the second 'non-GX-resident' for me to ride that day, although she had stayed with us for a few days before in order for us to 'fine-tune' a few things. Owned by Anna Goodson, who is currently not riding due to the very recent birth of her daughter Millie, Nyala is another short-term ride for me. We started out with a very reasonable dressage test as this would not be Nyalas' best phase, and I was very happy with a mark of 30. The showjumping was an exciting, although fortunately clear, stage. As she is extremely sensitive in her mouth we have been using a bitless bridle for our jumping over the winter and it has worked well, however in a large arena, outside for the first time it didnt work at all, luckily for all the fact that she gets herself into all sorts of trouble she does have a huge jump and is actually very careful. We went back to a happy mouth snaffle for the xc phase, which all went off without any drama, and I had a lovely ride finishing well inside the time to finish 2nd to our old friend Coco de Cara. I will be aiming to ride her again at Hambleden in a few weeks, this time in a Novice. Having so many of the young horses going so brilliantly has also meant that in addition to Tigga being top of the Foundation Points League, so am I in the Rider League, the first time I have ever featured in a National points table, which is hugly exciting, now to repeat the success at the higher level......

Sunday started out far better although in the end turned out to be rather less successful. Having taken Muffin to work her on the showgroound both Friday and Saturday I was hopeful that she would be settled and perform a nice test, however this was not to be the case. She did however go on to jump a fabulous double clear in what is still only our second event together and our first Intermediate outing. Murphy I felt was rather harshly marked in the OI section, although as usual anticipating what I might want rather than waiting to see what I actually ask him to do, we did have a couple of minor errors like a step back in the halt but he still didnt gain great marks for the bits that I felt were ok and ended up with a mark of 40. However he went on to showjump well, the soft ground being his prefered surface adding just 4 penalties. We have improved by one fence each time out so hopefully next time we will get the clear, lol. The xc was again brilliant and he was foot perfect around the whole course and compared well with the others on time, however due to his dressage mark we were well out of the money.

Last to go was Coevers Diamond Clover (Flynn), in Novice section N. An appalling dressage test, in which all his old habits resurfaced was not a good start, and I rather felt that his mark of 41 was exceedingly generous. His showjumping was as always good and he was unlucky to have a fence down, and the xc phase was super, Ardingly was the location of his first Novice run last autumn and it was nice to see how much more confident he felt in comparison, he skipped around the course easily and was one of just 8 horses to be inside the optimum time in his section. Flynn really is such a super horse it is easy to forget that he is still only 6 and I really feel that if we can get him sorted in the dressage phase he will easily take on an Intermediate.

I would also like to say an enormous THANK-YOU to all the people who helped me over the weekend but especially on Saturday, Anna Gorringe, Anna Goodson and her Mum, Suzie, Bill and Jenny, Sarah, Laura, Vicky, Karla, Harriet and Keith. X