Isleham...

On Sunday we had our season debut at Isleham... It was a shock to the system when we worked out we had to get up at 2.30am!!!!!
We had FERNHILL CRISTAL and GI MASTER CASTER in the Open Novice, with VANCOUVER in the Intermediate-Novice.
Cristal started out with a lovely dressage to score the second highest place of the section with a 28.
Caster then followed suit with another nice test, he was a little tense at the start but settled really well in the second half. He scored 32.
Both boys then jumped brilliant double clears. The ground was getting quite deep so I took them quite steady, Cristal picked up 10.8 time penalties which was good enough for 3rd place. Unfortunately they had a mix up with Caster's timing and gave him 53 time penalties, they then realised there was no way I went that slow so changed it to 20 penalties, this in my opinion was unfair on the horse as he deserved a placing.. even with 20 time faults he finished 12th!
Vancouver not letting the side down produced another good dressage, with a 32, which left him lying 2nd. Unfortunately the ground in the showjumping was very deep now and he had 2 rails down, I think he just got a bit stuck in the mud!!
He then flew round the xc but after 2 rails I just went steady and picked up 14 time penalties but he still managed to finish in 9th place.
A good day all round and it was a long journey back with Alex Van Tuyll and myself singing along to the top 40!!! I hope no one could hear us!!!!!!!!!!