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This has been a very pleasant month to be honest!
Briska Sow (Ria -the 4 year old chestnut mare) was equal first at the British Young Horse Championships. In the final she had the very last 1m15 fence down in the final round, which bumped her out of the £3000 bonus prize for jumping clear in every round - I was gutted!
She lacked energy through the last few fences which i guess is normal for a 4 year old having to jump that many rounds around technical up to height fences. I was however very proud of her, she has come along way from when the WINERGY Equilibrium team first saw her, when she was skinny, gangly and severly lacking top line. So for her to finish her year winning four 4 year old classes this season, I suppose you can't be too disappointed :) As I type this she is in the field with the young mares on holiday (and very happy).
After the young horse championships I gave all the horses a break as its been a busy year! This hopefully will mean the be fresh and up for the winter season. This coincided well with my other half, Trevor Breen, competing in Spruce Meadows, Calgary, Canada which is a 5* FEI show.
9 hours later on a flight I arrived in Calgary to be utterly blown away by the show. The facilities for riders, grooms, owners and horses were amazing! There were functions on every night for us to attend as well as catering through out the day.... I was not complaining.The jumping was amazing - far bigger and more technical than over here. To top it off he was 2nd in the Meydan Nations Cup for Ireland and 9th in the $1,000,000 Grand Prix so came home with a fair bit of prize money. Addy (his horse) loved the big grass rings and in all the prize givings was bucking and leaping around!
I came home from Calgary to find out my best horse It's Gold (Chester to his friends) was allowed to canter and be brought back to full work, after studding him self at a county show in the summer. It is so nice for him to be back and i don't even mind him bucking and spinning as he is also very happy to be back ridden. I will aim for Aintree Premier Show to be his first show back, which is first week of November. Wish me luck!
I also visited the World Breeding Championships held at Zangersheide, in Lanaken, Belgium for a few days. This really opened my eyes to the standard of young horses at the top level. The 5 year olds were having to jump a strong 1m25 track and going flat out against the clock at 1m30... I actually thought this was a bit too much for 5 year olds as they are still developing and growing at this age. The 6 and 7 year old classes were highly competitive and if you blinked you missed them! Oh and did i mention the shopping was not too bad either?
Unfortunately it was a month of selling horses too which is never easy, but that's what makes my business work.They have all gone to lovely homes and are out competing already. So for the this upcoming month I will be doing a few shows in France and carrying on jumping the younger horses in the 1m10/ 1m20/ 1m25 classes until the first premier show in England.
Catch up soon!
Caroline x
