Borde Hill and Shelford Manor

Borde Hill was a very exciting event for us as it was our first event training Helena Vardag-Walters, our new student as well as the first event ever for the very exciting VIVA DE VARDAG (Viva) owned but Helena’s mother Ayesha Vardag.

We headed down to Sussex the evening before for our first training sessions with Helena which was a huge success. Helena has two fabulous horses in Noble Nutteller (Nutty) and Vardags Bucephalus (Cehpy) so we are delighted to be involved with such a talented young rider.

Viva is a new ride for us this year and only arrived in the yard a couple of weeks ago, she is very enthusiastic with plenty of blood and quality but is still very green and inexperienced so we weren’t sure what to expect! We needn’t have worried as she behaved impeccably: a sweet test with some very green moments scored 31 and she followed this up with a steady double clear feeling as though she was growing in confidence all the time.

Helena too had a great day with personal best dressage scores on both horses: Cephy scored a 33 and Nutty a staggeringly good 25. Both show-jumped beautifully for clear and 4 faults. Unfortunately poor Helena took a tumble from Cephy after he slipped badly on landing from a fence XC but she showed true resilience and professionalism by dusting herself off and jumping the most beautiful clear on Nutty to finish just outside the ribbons in 13th place.

The following day we headed up to Shelford Manor in Nottinghamshire with Isobel Crosbie’s ESCAPE ROUTE for the 5yo class. He was so much improved in the dressage staying very relaxed and soft to score 31 and followed this up with a lovely clear SJ round. He gave me a beautiful ride XC but sadly had a baby spook at a fence to a step in the woods coming from bright sunshine so picked up 20 pens. Very frustrating to have picked up penalties but overall I am so pleased with the feel he gives me and I’ve no doubt he has a very exciting future.

Next stop Little Downham…