It was wrong of us to think the beautiful weather would continue right through to our first competition at Tweseldown. And true to form, Wednesday evening before the competition was due to commence, down came the rain. It would take a lot more than bad weather to ruin my day when I get to ride my two old favourites, Leilani and Newsprint. They were very both excited to be out and it was great to blow the cobwebs out and give them their first run. They were both super keen on cross country and pulled my arms out in my attempt to try and give them a slow run. Leilani got wound up in the showjumping when she saw the cross country running and thought she was at the Olympics again and had one down being a bit feisty. Old Newsprint stayed true to form, being the over achiever he is, and tried his heart out in the deep going.
Thursday the going was wet, Friday the ground was laughable as the warm up arena resembled a pig pen. But in true Aussie form we pushed on and gave the pre novices a steady run on Friday and Saturday and they behaved very well in the conditions.
We returned (yes a fourth day) on Sunday for the BE90 with Bek's horse Dexter and a very exciting debut with Dancing Hero (full brother to Dancing Hugo). We couldn't believe how good the going was on the fourth day. The dressage and show jumping arenas were moved each day to accommodate for over 1000 entries. A pretty sterling effort!
The local pheasant came to welcome us in our Surrey home
Very conveniently, having to go to Tweseldown four days in a row was made much easier by moving to a new yard 40 minutes away from Tweseldown one week earlier. The move a week before the start of the season wasn't so convenient but it could have been worse. So here we are near Godalming in Surrey. The most standout feature of the yard for us was all the dry turnout.
The wonderful turnout paddocks
Carl loves his new giant stable
There isn't much of that about in England so there was a very Australian feel about the place. Today however, is not so Australian with a howling snow blizzard outside. Thankfully we now have an indoor that although small, is some relief from days like today. We also find a small amount of relief when we sneak a peak at Sydney's forecast. It can be a bit torturous, but it reminds us that warmth and sunshine exists somewhere in the world!
Danny assessing the new feed storage facilities
