Lauren Shannon’s eventing blog: the mares are on flying form
It seems that after the good news of our planning permission last week, the horses haven’t wanted to be outdone.
On Thursday we headed to Purston Manor for the intermediate novice class, as Purdey (Quality Purdey) and Holly (Riffala Du Buisson) haven’t competed since Somerford and need to get back in gear for the upcoming Osberton 3-day.
Both mares did lovely dressage tests, if a little bit excited to be back out competing. They then both jumped double clear, with Holly winning the section and Purdey finishing 9th with a few time-penalties.
We then had a quiet day at home before heading to Burnham Market with all the mares on Saturday. I am normally quite keen to get up early to drive to an event rather than stay over, so either I’m getting old or the season is getting to its tail end as I wasn’t keen for a 3hr journey then riding 3 horses before heading home.
I had Holly in the novice, Crunchie (Kilcannon Watlings Crunch) in the intermediate and Purdey in the TCN2* on Sunday, so we packed off on Saturday and rode them all at the event before stabling locally for the night.
Sunday went very well with all the girls. Holly again did herself proud by finishing 5th with a double clear — we didn’t mention to her that it wasn’t quite the win of a couple days before! I am so proud of this mare, as I only started riding her in February and she is finally trusting me and really coming into her own. She is now heading to her first CCI* at Osberton.
Crunchie did a lovely dressage test and stormed round the cross-country (above), but a silly fence down that was my fault meant she wasn’t in the prizes. Crunchie is a big mare, who is still growing, but feels like she is maturing every time I ride her and I can’t wait to see her when she is strong!
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To finish off a great day, Purdey did a really nice test followed by a great double clear (right) to qualify for Osberton’s 7-year-old championships. I cannot believe this mare has only evented for a year — this time last year she was doing her second BE100 at Burnham Market! Therefore, to be finishing the year with a CCI2* goes beyond all our expectations, and it looks like next year might be pretty exciting too.
Lauren
Full report from Burnham Market in H&H this Thursday, 26 September.
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Event rider Lauren Shannon blogged on Horseandhound.co.uk from June 2011 until September 2014. Born in Brighton, she lived in America from the age of three to 16, returning to the UK to go to university after she finished school. After university she worked for Mark and Tanya Kyle before setting up her own yard in Leicestershire. Her best result to date was finishing 9th at the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials with her top horse, Zero Flight.