Skýfaxa

Fun day today, got up at stupid o' clock to get to Beaumont by 8.30 as we were first on the PTV course at 9.30. For once it started on time, Ali nearly missed her turn having been sent back to the stables as she'd forgotton to put her horse's boots on

G and I were first on the course, it was all going swimmingly until we got to the log that we had to go over in hand. I jump over it, land in the ditch on the other side that Isabelle had warned us about yesterday but I'd totally forgotten about, and go arse over tit and end up flat on my back looking up at a surprised horse still on the other side of the log.........you gotta laugh

Luckily for me Stewart wasn't there this time with his video camera but Isabelle reckons she got a photo.......

Finished the rest of the course no problems, he even jumped the two other obstacles with me on board.

Ches did a pretty good job of trashing one of the jumps, but wasn't too bad otherwise....

Ali had a great round on Karim, one of the school horses

and Caitlin did a lovely job with a very tricky TB.

After that the Maitrise des Allures where you have to canter one way as slowly as possible on a marked corridor of 150m and walk back as fast as possible the same distance.

I am dead chuffed we managed to stay in canter and actually got some points this time - if you drop out of canter or step out of the lines it's zero points

He wouldn't stay in walk on the way back though cos he wanted to get back to Ches so we didn't get anything for that.

Then everyone disappeared for aperos and lunch before it was time to saddle up again for the POR (orienteering) bit. The other members of my team weren't exactly queuing up to do the map bit so it was down to me and we set off in a nice bit of sunshine. Which quickly turned to rain. At one of the checkpoints the guy had an umbrella, pleased to say our horses were fine with this, unlike some of the other competitors!

We asked the chap with the umbrella to take a pic for us, as you can see, Cait's horse wasn't too keen on the others!

I put Gandalf's booties on for the ride as it's so stony round Beaumont, but it was like he wasn't wearing them, he still kept to the verges to avoid any stones and gravel. They stayed on though and after 14km hadn't rubbed him at all.

After all that we came.......second.

And on individual scores Ali & Cait got more points than us first time out.......