Fairfax and Favour Rockingham International

Rockingham is one of my favourite events so we were really excited to make the long trip up to Northants. It was a busy day 1 for us with 5 horses competing.

My own and Brenda Watson’s CLASS SPEC was contesting his first BYEH 4yo class. He was such a pro, and behaved impeccably scoring 23 for dressage, 34 for jumping and 16 for conformation and type. Unfortunately this left him just outside the top 10 in 11th but we were absolutely delighted with his first competition and so excited about whats to come from him.

Isobel Crosbie’s ESCAPE ROUTE was also contesting his first BYEH in the 5yo section. He too went very well, especially in the jumping and also finished just outside the top 10 in 11th. He found the dressage and the jumping very exciting but was rather shell shocked by having to trot up so this is definitely an area we will be working on.

Isobel also had her lovely novice horse THE DIAMOND GAMBLER (Brian) in the Novice. He scored a competitive 31 on the flat and then jumped a beautiful double clear to finish 5th. This lovely young horse is taking time to mature as he is quite tall but I am so thrilled with how he is strengthening and gaining in confidence all the time. He has really found his gallop and I cant wait to let him loose round a big track! 

DIAMOND HOLLY and I had another great run to begin to cement our partnership with another double clear inside the time, this time picking up 7th place.

Lastly I had VARDAGS SARATOGA in the CIC*. This was our first event together and my first event riding for our fantastic new owners: Vardags Equestrian and Ayesha Vardag. We are absolutely thrilled to have Vardags on board and very excited at whats to come from their lovely group of horses. VARDAGS SARATOGA has been produced by Kate Greenhalgh and only arrived with us about 10 days before Rockingham so it was rather a baptism of fire, but overall I was very pleased with how things went. A 33.3 dressage followed by a flawless double clear inside the time to finish in 8th place from 65 starters. We will continue to get to know Sara and look forward to building a solid partnership over the forthcoming season.

Massive thank you to Dani and Charlotte for their incredible work over the weekend – it was certainly a busy one with VERY early mornings and late nights but all the horses looked amazing and everything worked like clockwork to all credit must go the them.