Charlie Pickman

Time to sit back and relax...?

The eventing season has now finished and unfortunately for me it happened at a time where everything was starting to come together!  After having a busy few weeks catching up with teeth (for those who don't know I am an equine dentist in between the eventing!) I have had a little time to reflect on the season and how I can make improvements for next year.  Jenny Jackson, who already owns two of my rides, Josh and Minnie now proudly owns half of Viking too.  He hasn't disappointed us finishing his season coming 2nd at Aldon.  He is showing good form so far in his dressage test and still has a clean slate Show Jumping after 3 events.

Aldon certainly was a good event for Jenny as Minnie won his Pre-Novice section and Josh came 9th in the Intermediate.  Minnie is a 5 year old coloured gelding, who is exceptionally bold cross country - and with a bit of work is getting much better at the show jumping.

All the horses are out in the field now having a rest, but I will start to bring some of the younger ones back into work in the next few weeks.  Viking and Billie have turned out to be extremely mischievous out together, constantly looking for trouble and finding it far too easy to jump out!  They will both come in soon and start work in preparation for the 2008 season.

After the 2007 weather I wonder if it is worth planning too far ahead?!  However we hope to take Meg to a spring CDI***, probably Bramham or maybe Saumur, and then qualify for Burghley at the end of the year.  Billie, Minnie and Viking will do some age classes, but I don't want to rush any of them as they are young and hopefully worth waiting for.  Josh will continue with Intermediate classes, and probably some 2 stars, and we will see if that's his limit or if he is capable of more.

Well let's get through the winter first and see what 2008 will bring!

Charlie