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So; Portugal did not go quite to plan. Although the horses travelled well and performed great, a trip after a fence resulted in me breaking my collar bone on Dinky in the 6 year old class. Through no fault of her own, Dinky lost her footing on landing and went down on her head..... So i had to hand over the reins of all the horses to Trevor Breen (who was delighted to have an extra 3 to ride each day bringing the number of horses to be ridden each day to 11!)
Luckily Dinky was able to continue competing and gained her confidence back reasonably quickly which meant she had enough results to qualify for the 6 year old final. A clear round in the final with a fence down was good enough for her to be placed in the 1 metre 30/ 1 metre 35 class. I was very pleased with her and as i write this she is currently being inseminated at our vets to have a foal while I am out of action.
Ria my 5 year old (who i had reservations about) was a complete star in Portugal. Clearly Ria and the sunshine go well together. She jumped just 3 times each week which is perfect for a young horse. She never would have seen a ring so big, such scary jumps, speakers blaring music or the huge screen with her name on it when she was jumping. However you would think she was a pro and was regularly in the money as well as muscling up hugely over the 4 weeks. Again a clear round was good enough in the 5 year old final to be placed. It was great experience for her to be warming up in busy arenas and hopefully being stabled next to the older international horses she has picked up all sorts of tips from them!
Wendy proved to be a little tricky for Trevor at first, obviously missing her mum. What a typical girl! After a week of bonding they were flying- jumping clear rounds in the International classes. As i have mentioned before she is affected by stress when travelling and any sort of change and can some time result in her going off her feed, however she came back from Portugal extremely porky!
So although I had to miss a few weeks jumping, i was pleased to see how well behaved they were for a complete stranger riding them. When they returned from Portugal they had a holiday in the field with the other horses in Ireland.
I have various mares going in foal to a range of stallions which i am very excited about, as we love having foals at home. The young ones are all loose jumping well at home and the 2 year old stallions are off to be broken in 6 weeks which should hopefully put a few manners on them or they will have to have the 'snip'........
In the meantime I am continuing with physio and hope to be back in the saddle ASAP!
Hope your all enjoying the lighter evenings and warm weather
Caroline x
