Bradley goes cross country at Capel one day event
In the middle of March my team attended a weekend of show jumping in Albany, enduring lots and lots of rain! I suppose we can’t complain about rain here in WA, we never get any! I had a great weekend, over some great courses designed by Martin Hellier – with Bradley winning the 1.15m class on Sunday, beating the more experienced Felix.
Trav says hi from Capel
The following weekend I also took Felix and Bradley to Capel CNC, along with Saturday Night Fever (Trav). Felix and Bradley did their first One Star – both producing quite nice tests, although Felix did decide to show the judges he would be better at 3 star, throwing in a beautiful change in the counter canter!
Bradley’s dressage at Capel
Both ponies then went double clear cross country, which I was very happy with. I rarely wear a watch cross country, as I prefer to have a feel rather than focusing on chasing the clock, so I was surprised when I came in under time on both! Show jumping went well, not as good as the weekend before, apparently I was still stuck in official show jump mode and had time penalties on both – but Felix finished third and Bradley ninth, out of a strong 30 something class - so I was very pleased.
Trav also came along for his second event ever. He was leading after dressage and went clear show jumping but unfortunately a long cross country course took its toll. Trav had a few baby moments, the funniest of which was spending the whole time from jump one to jump two bucking and then deciding that jump two was very scary!
Trave show jumping at Capel
Sadly, since then, Trav passed away. We were not to know this would be his last event and I was eagerly looking forward to taking him out again. But over Easter, Trav suffered a paddock injury that resulted in a puncture wound the vets could not fix and after a long day, his amazing owner, Cristy Shore, made the ever tough decision. Trav was a beautiful soul, a cheeky character, and a wonderful learner, who will be forever missed.
This all happened right before the Little Brigadoon one day event where a bunch of us young riders and people who have not been involved in a committee before joined forces and made a new eventing committee for WA – Futures Eventing Committee. We held our first one day event, running EVA65 and EVA80 class, as well as high schools qualifier. I was cross country co-ordinator and I have to say I have a new found and fun passion in cross country design and decorating. I found myself out there all day, until I was using car headlights to put flowers in here, there and everywhere! Congrats to the rest of the committee I am proud of us all.
Now coming up I have the WAYER CIC at Brookleigh – the last event being held at this venue. Murph makes an outing this time for the CIC*** class. Felix’s part owner Ben Mitchell is also stealing him back from me to compete him at a local one day event – so there will be much to talk about next month!
