This week has truly been a mixed bag.
We started at Purston Manor last week, where my two novice horses and my intermediate mare had a nice run each in the novice class.
I also had my new ride, Watling JCB’s “Crunchie” (Kilcannon Credit Crunch), competing in the BE100 – our first event together. She went amazingly well, having one unfortunate pole down but doing a super cross-country to finish 13th.
A couple of days later, we went to Burnham Market with Crunchie to give her a nice confidence-giving second outing. She is such a quick learner and we had a lovely positive time and finished in sixth, which was very pleasing and bodes well for the future.
I was really excited to head back there on the Sunday to take “Lux (Gentel Lux), “Smartie” (Smart Lady) and “Robbie” (Ballyengland Twilight) round and have a similarly happy time… which I’m sure would have been the case if we had made it there at all!
After setting off in good time early Sunday morning, we were stopped short (literally) when steam started pouring out of the horsebox engine. So instead of enjoying a day out competing, we spent six hours trying to find a new fan belt to fit my very old truck, which didn’t prove to be easy. Thank goodness for breakdown cover and the two lovely mechanics who helped us get back on the road to get the horses home safe and sound. Not the day we had planned and definitely time to look for new transport.
This morning was another early start to go out autumn hunting with a couple youngsters, which was lovely, but after the third day of an early alarm I wasn’t keen to stay out for too long!
So now it’s looking forward to the rest of the week and my first World Class training day on Wednesday. I can’t wait to get started in the programme, and see how my horses stand up to it. Crunchie and Lux are going for lessons, and so Crunchie’s owners will get to come see what the “pros” think of her.
Last but not least, I have to find time off the horses to get into the office and attend to a mountain of paperwork and continue the quest to find new owners — so if anyone out there wants to get involved in this exciting sport, you know who to call!
Lauren
