BARBURY

Barbury Castle is possibly the nicest event... with the amazing settings, it is spectator friendly and the ground is perfect!
RAYEF was in the 120 strong CIC***... He was very excited to be out and thought he should just go straight around the XC! He took a lot of work to settle him down but luckily by the time his test was on Saturday afternoon, he was on brilliant form! He scored a 34.8 dressage and that put him in the lead from Pippa Funnell on a 36.4 and in 3rd was Emily Baldwin on a 40.2.
He showjumped brilliantly but in the main arena at Barbury you have to go up a bank, jump 2 fences and drop back down the bank, this unsettled him slightly so annoyingly he had the rail at the bottom of the bank... this was still good enough to keep him in the lead as Pippa and Emily both had a rail.
XC was in reverse order so it was a very long wait!
The time is always hard to get on the XC at Barbury and although I really wanted to win, I also wanted a sound horse and wasn't willing to risk a silly mistake by going crazily fast! RAYEF was fantastic and he added 6.8 time penalties which unfortunately cost us the win... we ended up in 3rd, still a great result and I really hope the senior selectors may just consider him for the European Championhips now... if not then we will be having a good crack at Burghley CCI****!