Luhmuhlen
We made it to Luhmuhlen and it was well worth the wait! Having had Wild Lone primed for Badminton it has felt like a very long six weeks but we had a great trip to Germany for the CCI**** and we were delighted with Wild Lone who finished in 11th place.
Our trip didn't start too well as we had planned to travel with William Fox-Pitt and Seacookie but just before we were due to set off for William's yard we had a call to say that Seacookie may no longer be going! After a lot of telephone calls we rearranged our plans and eventually invaded Francis Whittington's family trip. The Whittington's very kindly let us share their truck and it was great fun to spend the week with them.
It was the first time I had competed at Luhmuhlen since my first CCI**** there in 2005 where I had a less satisfactory time and ended up taking a swim in the water with Midnight Dazzler! Fortunately this time we managed to avoid a repeat performance. The event had a great atmosphere and felt considerably more relaxed than Badminton and Burghley. The course was excellent. It asked some decent questions and provided a really good result.
Laura Bechtolsheimer came out to work both me and Andrew Hoy in for the dressage which was a huge help and we were really pleased with how Wild Lone went. He made a couple of quite costly mistakes, including a jog during the extended walk which is usually his best movement but I over-rode the movement. The overall picture is really improving and he scored a personal best of 50.8 with lots more room for improvement. This left him in 21st place after the dressage.
The cross country proved to be very influential with problems spread all over the course but I was thrilled with Wild Lone's confident performance. He felt as good as ever and I am already looking forward to attacking Burghley with him in the Autumn. By the end of the day we had moved up to 10th place. Poor Selina Elliot had a nasty fall and has cracked her pelvis in three places. She is still in hospital in Hamburg waiting to be operated on this week.
The final day brought another influential jumping competion and the show jumping caused a shuffle in the order of the top ten. Wild Lone jumped really well but frustratingly had two poles down dropping us one place to 11th. We were really pleased with his overall performance in all three phases and it's great to have another **** under our belt!
We drove Selina Elliot's horse and lorry back through the night and although it was a long drive we were home by 8.30am and had time to get the other horses ridden and re pack for two days of World Class training. Yet another early start tomorrow!!
