Belton

 We were very lucky to run at Belton with the extreme weather conditions and Tenareze was the only one of our five to have his class cancelled.  

Away Cruising was third to go in the massvie Grantham Cup CIC*** section out of 120 horses and put in a lovely performance in dressage to score a very competitive 44 giving him the early lead.  His show jumping is much improved this season and he jumped really well having just one fence down and he gave me another super ride cross country making nothing of a tough track.  He is a big horse with a long stride but slow to move up and down in gear so it will be interesting to see how he gets on with the time when he gets to his his first CCI***.

Vrolijk did very little wrong in the CIC** but it just wasn't his day.  He took severe objection to a chap in a flourescent yellow coat standning by the judges car; he froze on the centre line and wouldn't go anywhere near! Fortunately once we got over that he did a lovely test to score 47.  His show jumping was disappointing as he is such a good jumper and rarely touches a fence.  He appeared to jump a lovely round, no mistakes and I wouldn't have done anything differently if I'd tried again, but he somehow had three fences down which was a shame.  He gave me a cracking ride cross country and felt in top form apart from a perculiar mistake at the very straight foward hay rack at fence four.  Afterwards it became apparent that he had over reached badly on take off and he had to be stitched up. 

Catherston Definitive had his eyes out on stalks as Belton was a big step up in every way for him.  Having done lots of low key Novices this was his first Intermediate run and the course and atmosphere at Belton were quite something.  He has become very consistent in his dressage and did another good test to score 29.  He was a little overwhelmed by the show jumping and had the first three fences down but once he got going jumped beautifully and he was a star cross country.  It was closer to an Advanced track than a Novice with lots of difficult combinations but I was thrilled with him and he jumped a super clear round.

Cavalier Crystal ran well in the Novice jumping a great double clear.  She was unfazed by the grown-up show jumping arena and felt super across country, it was a tough Novice track and she felt brave and confident.

So it was just poor Tenareze who made the long trip up to Belton to have a little play in the snow and then head back home!

The BEDE team did an outstanding job to keep the show running and the event gets bigger and better every year which a huge number of spectators over the weekend.