One last TREC...

As some of you will know, we are heading back to the UK at Christmas, dog, (most of the) horses and all, so yesterday was our last French TREC competition. Fitting that it was the Beaumont Christmas TREC which was the first competition we ever did here four years ago.....

This time we went with Carole and John from the club and Ali took Kinna for her first ever competition. We didn't have a particularly early start time but in true French style, we still managed to be half an hour late. Nobody minded though, so after some strong coffee, second breakfast and a quick bit of map copying, we donned our tinsel and off we went.

The weather was perfect, sunny and not too cold and for once we didn't get rained on. We managed to get our average speed about right because Carole's Arab, Nadjma, wanted to rush off thinking she was doing endurance and poor old G, despite wanting to keep up with her, just couldn't do the speed, especially at canter, so they had to wait for us every so often which meant we didn't lose any marks for going too fast.....

But he still had a nice spring in his step, even though I'd ridden him the 15kms up to the club last Friday and he'd been out on a hack with Kinns the day before.

Kinna was ace, she seems to really enjoy hacking out. Carole reckons she could be good at endurance as she doesn't seem to stress about much so her heart rate shouldn't be too high. She will be staying here in France at the club as Ali is already too tall for her really and Carole is just the right size :-)

Chox came with us too and really enjoyed herself, especially as when she looked longingly at the snacks on the checkpoints people took pity on her and slipped her bits of the charcuterie....

Those last three pics were taken by the professional photographer and really show the colours well, my little camera doesn't unfortunately, although I was surprised that this pic I took whilst cantering came out quite well:

After a few wine stops, or checkpoints as they are usually known, we got back to the stables for the main event, the slap up meal in the indoor school. Posh this year though as there were tablecloths and everything! In the absence of the SNO who had opted to go to the Bordeaux Christmas market with Mamie, Aliénor did her trick of hoovering up all the free chocolates and then not wanting her dinner.

And then it was the prize giving. Tamzin and her friend won the fancy dress prize for their angelic look.......

....and our team came.......second out of 8 teams/individuals in the Club competition, really pleased with that :-) Especially as if you look at the team only comp, we were first out of 3.