Charlie Pickman

Meg begins her Advanced Campaign

The last few weeks have been fairly quiet on the eventing front. We have however been travelling miles to find Advanced events for Meg. Thankfully they haven't been wasted journeys. Two weeks ago we went to Belton House, where driving through the gate felt like a mini Badminton. I haven't been to Belton before, and thought it was a great setting and a lovely event. This was our first Advanced this year and only Megs second Advanced ever, after doing the Intermediate Championships at Gatcombe last year. I thought the track was big but very jumpable. The dressage was set in the main arena and had quite an atmosphere. Considering this, Meg held her nerves together well, and although she only got 48.6, this was an improvement of 9% on Aldon. She then went on to have 2 fences down in the show jumping, which was a little disappointing,I think I got her a little too relaxed! I had planned not to go too fast cross country and so was delighted with a lovely clear round making the course feel easy.

We next took her to Weston Park, where after walking round the course the first time I thought it was more testing than Belton. After a second walk around, I was beginning to feel more confident - the combinations did not look quite so tricky on second examimation. Our Dressage although still a bit tense showed some improvement in the more complicated canter work which meant we were rewarded with a score of 40, another improvement of 9% on the previous score. The show jumping was better this time as well, with just one fence down which was due to confusion between horse and rider as to what to do in a combination. She flew around the cross country and this time finished in 13th place. This is my best result to date at Advanced level so I was pleased - with a bit more improvement in the dressage I think Meg will stand a good chance of being in the top 10.

I have found the standard at Advanced a lot higher than at Intermediate level, but we now need to work on being competitive at this level to improve. Meg is now planned to do the Advanced at Withington Manor and then the CCI** at Houghton Hall and the CIC*** at Barbary Castle to gain her qualification for a CCI***. This gives us lots to look forward to and with the other horses all doing some events as well, a busy time ahead.

Charlie