Hannah Esberger-Shepherd

First Outing after Maternity Leave goes well!

The first outing since having Molly started well!  The sun was shining, we had both horses on board as well as Molly.  I had ridden two of the horses on the yard and was ready by 10am for the off - all going well then we lost the front of the exhaust on route....oh dear!  Still we got there in one piece.  Dolce Vita was first of my rides to compete.  She had not been out since September and then only twice in young horse classes.  Bless her - she was so "worried" we failed to perfom some of the movements, but she did look amazing and despite the hiccups she had some really positive comments from the judge.  The following novice test 40 minutes later was much better - she was completely trusting and trying for me and won with 68.5%.  She was washed off and I was put to feeding duties with Molly before getting onto Rubins.  He followed a similar routine.  His first class was Elementary and although he won it he only scored 64.75% which is not high enough to count as a qualifier. He then went on to do the Medium and won with 67% so half qualified.  We where very pleased with the results as he has also not been out since September.

It was really nice to be back with 3 wins out of 4.  We are off to Somerford Premier with Vanita in the Young Horse class and Noblesse doing Int 1 and Int II.  We are still keeping our fingers crossed we can get all the horses qualifed for their levels for the Summers....!

Hannah