Brent Pelham Hunter Trial... etc. :)

Yesterday (Saturday 27th) Annabel and I took the two podgy mares to the hunter trial at Brent Pelham. Bonnie hadn't done any competitive cross country in about a year (or... come to think of it, competed at all in ages!), so I was just taking her with the aim of having a laugh and getting around in one piece.


Mayfly Ginger and Annabel Shaw... and a bit of Bonnie.
We did a bit crud in the pairs, we accidentally missed a fence, Bonnie and I had a couple of runouts, and then we failed to do one of the dressing fences properly because marey had a moment at the photographer. :) But! My lovely little mare was awesome in the novice individuals! We went clear, managing to keep up a good pace throughout, and ended up placing 3rd. The only slight blip we had was when we had to go through a gateway which had *shock horror* a bale of straw leaning next to it. Bonnie thought that would serve as a good excuse to snort and spin for home, but luckily as it wasn't at a fence it didn't count as any penalties.

So I am a very proud Phoebe! It might only have been a tiny little hunter trial, but it's definitely a step in the right direction for the both of us. I just need to keep getting her out and about, to get her to realise that actually, the world isn't that scary a place.


Bonita Spring and Phoebe Kitscha
So after all her hard work yesterday, we just went for a nice, quiet little hack. Well at least, that was my intention. Bonnie had better ideas though, and decided to jump the river crossing from a standstill and take off at a gallop. :) So much for being tired! When we got back, I had a bit of time to kill before getting picked up so we did some trick practice, seeing as we haven't done that in a while. Bonnie was more than happy to waggle her forelegs at me for polos, and did a nice little bow. Bless my little marey.