Charlie Pickman

CCI*** Qualification!

Meg and I are now qualified for a CCI***!  We successfully achieved our qualifying result at Houghton Hall in the CCI**.  Although we had a very silly run out at the penultimate fence she jumped all the testing combinations with ease.

We completed Barbary Castle CIC*** this weekend with one show jump down and a clear round cross country.  I thought both the jumping phases looked big, particularly the show jumping, but Meg made nothing of  it making it feel like a Pony Club course.  Many top riders were there, and as there were only 12 clear show jumping rounds without time penalties out of 118 starters and quite a few complications on the cross country I did not feel too bad.

I have started having dressage lessons with Adam Kemp which helped tremendously before both Houghton and Barbary.  Now we have negotiated a 3 star test we can work on improving our changes and trying to eliminate the tension.  I can't wait to jump some bigger tracks and am hoping that we will be accepted for the CIC*** at Hartpury and CCI*** at Blenheim.

After having a successful eventing career, and doing a lot more than we originally expected, we have decided it is time to put Dazzler in foal.  We are putting her to a Holstein stallion called Landtanzer who moves well, jumps well and has a great temperament.  So fingers crossed she takes and all is well.  She is a great stamp of a horse and hopefully this combination will breed a future Badminton winner!

Chard and Worcester Lodge shows are next with Burghley Young Event Horse classes.  Billy has continued to impress me with his attitude and balance.  It is rare to find a 4 year old who finds everything so easy, and I hope that he impresses the judges too!  We are also taking Vladamir who is a 5 year old owned by Tim Warren and Steve and Ali Smith.  He is a big strong type, and quite different to Billy, but could have a good chance in the 5 year old class.

I also have a new ride on Mulgrave Josh who is owned by Jenny Jackson.  It has taken a couple of events to get used to him, but I think we are on track now.  He has competed at Intermediate level in the past, but we have just done a few Novices to develop the partnership.  At Longleat in his dressage he got a mark of 19.1, including two 10's!  Unfortunately he had to do the section HC as he has Intermediate points, but otherwise he would have won.  Hopefully we can continue as well at Stockland Lovell where he runs at Intermediate level.

Well we are still waiting for summer, or did that happen at Badminton?  At least we haven't had to worry about hard ground recently!

Charlie