Charlie Pickman

A new Pony arrives!

It's no wonder the English are renowned for talking about the weather - a month of rain, then a month of sun and wind, and now it's raining again. We did need the rain as the ground was so hard and the grass was static, but everything is now muddy again! At Stockland Lovell the other weekend they had to cancel the Pre-Novice on Sunday afternoon because of the wet and dangerous conditions. If only it had been a couple of weeks earlier for Badminton!

Stockland Lovell was Dazzler's first event this year and we were very pleased with her. We would have been well placed but as we decided to take it steady cross country to rebuild her confidence we had time penalties. She coped well with the "new" water jump (the flooded sunken road) and was somewhat surprised at the depth of the water jump - but she jumped it all easily so this schooling round was worthwhile.

Meg has been to Withington to do another Advanced. The dressage and show jumping went fairly well but we had a few steering issues cross country - she was feeling very well!! Six inches too far to the right up some steps resulted in us aiming for the huge brush in between the advanced and intermediate fences and so she ducked out, dumping me on top of the brush! We were both OK so I decided to continue on for experience - she jumped the rest like it was a Novice course. What made this more infuriating was that without the hiccup she would have been in the top 6 and if we had continued at her earlier pace we could have won!  However we learn from our mistakes so now we are working on my anchor points and her steering!

Next comes Houghton Hall CCI** where it is essential for Meg to get a good result towards our quest for Blenheim. I also have Chepstow, Longleat and Salperton to look forward to, as well as some Burghley Young Event Horses classes.

But the biggest excitement this week - after lots of dentistry work and saving hard - I have just brought a 4 year old with huge potential! He is a cheeky little Dutch bred chap with springs in his feet and the most fantastic balanced canter! As he is only 4 there is a long way to go, but he is mine and I have my fingers crossed that maybe he is "the one"!

Watch this space!

Charlie