Rockingham International

We headed up to Rockingham International with four horses in varying classes and were blessed with brilliant sunshine all weekend!

First up was our 5yr old homebred mare Quintessential (Chilli) having only her third run ever in the BE100 class. I was really pleased with how she took everything on, as Rockingham would be by far the most atmospheric competition she has been to. Her dressage was great and she achieved her best score to date 29.3, followed by a green pole in the show-jumping and then a nice steady confident clear cross country. I love how she is progressing and continually learning about her job.

Next up was Total Darkness (Ted) in his first international CIC*. Ted is a really super horse to look at with great movement, but he can lack a bit of confidence, so I was intrigued to see how he took it all on. I had to give him some time going into the dressage arena to take in the trees flagging the entrance! And we had a few green errors in the test, but overall he did some great work to score a solid 31.9. He then followed it up with an amazing double clear! We picked up a few time penalties to drop us out of top contention, but never-the-less we were really thrilled with how he performed and put it all together.

I then had Total Belief (April) and Wellshead Fare Opposition (Derby) in the CIC**. Derby was a tad excited to be out in his test (you have to love his continuous enthusiasm for the game though!) and April made a couple of expensive mistakes, but they both ended up on the same respectable score of 32.2. Show-jumping they both felt mega and jumped easy clear rounds, which was great. I then set out in a fairly competitive position on April and ready to give it a go. Unfortunately as is the way in eventing, it didn’t come off this time with this super mare and I annoyingly fell off! It was at the trakehner, which was going from light to dark and we just didn’t read it quite right, so she threw in an awkward jump and I got thrown. We are both totally fine, I was just annoyed! However, dear Derby finished off the day doing what he does best  and gave me an awesome clear cross country!

Overall, it was a positive weekend with huge thanks to the event organisers and all the amazing Team Keen lot who made it happen. Minus the one blip, all the horses felt fantastic and Ted, April and Derby are all in a good place ahead of our forthcoming first 3 day event of the year in Holland at the end of this month.