Barbury Castle is one of our most local events and certainly one of the most beautiful venues in the calendar. We started the week with CLASS SPEC in the BYEH 5yo class.
After a competitive dressage he then went on to score the highest jump mark in a huge section as well as the highest quality and confirmation. He went into the final 10 lying in 2nd place but sadly he wasn’t quite to the final judges liking and he dropped to 6th in the final line up – quite disappointing not to qualify as he has always been so successful in these classes but that is the unpredictable nature of showing!
Vardags Saratoga was in the CCI****S and Monarts Masterpiece was in the CCI***S but neither was a fan of the very firm going so we decided to save them for another day.
It was very exciting to have new ride MY LUCKY DAY owned by Sarah Hughes in the CCI***S as our first competition together. He is notorious for being rather tricky in the dressage so we were very happy with his mark of 38 at this stage. He rolled a pole and then gave me a great clear cross-country finishing a very productive first event together.
On the final day of Barbury I was riding Judy Kunkler and Tim and Alex Haggard’s MAGNIFIQUE VD DOORNHAAG in the NOV following her little holiday post Tatts. She scored a very good mark of 21 and then jumped a lovely steady double clear to finish in 3rd place. She gave me a great ride feeling full of confidence and back to her old self.