Although my 3 horses went well at Nunney, with top 10 placings for all, it wasn’t a weekend to celebrate due to the tragic deaths of Jordan McDonald and Benjamin Winter doing the sport we love. It was a harsh reminder of the risks we take while eventing and my heartfelt condolences go out to both families.
I must also thank the organisers at Nunney for everything they did over the weekend as it was a desperately sad day and they gave us a lovely day on Sunday, holding a minute’s silence to pay tribute to Jordan.
Archie (Arise Cavalier) put in a very mature performance in his 5-year-old section to come 3rd out of a strong field of 42, finishing on his dressage score of 28. This meant he got his qualification for the KBIS-sponsored 5-year-old championships held at Osberton in October, which is fantastic.
Skippy (Abakala Flagmount) also went very well in his BE100 section and finished in 10th place after a good dressage of 29, 4 faults showjumping and a great clear cross-country.
Myrtle (In Vogue II, above) was doing her first intermediate and I was absolutely thrilled with her performance. She did some lovely work in her test to score 30.5, a rider error showjumping meant we had an unfortunate pole and she flew round the cross-country for a lovely clear, picking up 10 time-faults which left us in 7th place. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the way she made the step up to intermediate level and we can now look to campaigning her for an autumn 2-star.
We decided not to run Kitkat (Another Breakfast) as the ground had become a little firm by the Sunday after some very hot weather over the weekend.
We then had Archie and Skippy at West Wilts on Wednesday. Archie was in the BE100 and he must have decided he had been far too well behaved at Nunney as he lived up to his nick name of naughty Archie in the showjumping, but thankfully redeemed himself with an easy clear cross-country. Skippy was doing his first novice and apart from a couple of green mistakes showjumping I was very pleased with him. He made light work of the cross-country and felt really confident.
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The week was rounded off by a day at Royal Ascot — it was my first time there and great to watch some top class flat racing as well as getting all dressed up!
Rosie
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Rosie Fry has been blogging for Horse & Hound since shortly after she left university to concentrate on eventing full time in July 2013. She is the sister of National Hunt trainer Harry Fry and helps school and exercise his horses when time allows.