Sam Penn winds down the season

This week has seen a few new experiences for myself and some of the boys, last Wednesday here at Golden Cross we held ‘An Evening with Team Sam Penn’, a lecture/demo aiming to show how we start off our young event horses and what we look for as they progress up the ranks. It was also a chance for some of our supporters and sponsors to showcase themselves. I have to admit to being utterly terrified at the prospect of talking to a large crowd of people but at the same time I was also worried that no-one at all would turn up. In the end it all went really well and several people were kind enough to email me afterwards to tell me that they had enjoyed it, so thank you very much to you all for coming and also to Howard Newitt, Olivia Jones and Balanced Horse Feeds for their contributions to the evening and not forgetting Bill Cook our stuntman!!

This weekend we had a lovely sunny day out at Pulborough with Brockley Star, Tickeridge and Lite My Fire. Broccoli and Tigga were both having their fist attempt at Novice level and both acquitted themselves exceptionally well, Broccoli adding 2 time faults to his dressage mark of 31.4 to finish in 2nd place, Tigga got a bit rude in his showjumping round and unfortunately added 8 faults to a fabulous dressage mark of 24.3, he was clear and inside the time across country though and finished in 7th place. So a fantastic start at the higher level and a really good way for them both to finish the season. Lulu rounded the day off nicely in BE100 sec M with a very unlucky 4 faults in the showjumping to add to her dressage mark of 31, but she still finished in 3rd place. I was also really pleased with how much her jumping has come on since she had a short holiday mid-season, she feels so much stronger and is starting to feel like a ‘proper’ horse.

So that’s pretty much it now for the season, a little bit of showjumping and a week at Aldon with Flynn which will seem like a bit of a holiday after what we have been used to and then all the boys and girls can go out to get fat, hairy and muddy for a while!