Following the cancellation of Hutton, Fizz and Sonny were rapidly re-routed to Turnberry horse Trials in Ayrshire. Overnight stabling was arranged and Rachel and I packed our woollies!
The journey took just under four hours and we went to the event location first and walked the courses. Then we set off to find our accommodation (stables for the horses, sleeping in the lorry for us!). Sonny was really funny, he was scared stiff of the strange stables and wouldn't go in for ages, but Fizz strutted in and made himself right at home. It was a really cold night but we had a giggle as we were wrapped fully-clothed in our sleeping bags!
Both horses did moderate dressage tests, so for Sonny, who was competing in a BE90 regional final with the chance of qualifying for the final at Badminton Horse Trials in 2010, that put any hopes of that out of the window. He redeemed himself slightly with a double clear show jumpimg and cross country, although amazingly after all our time penalties in the past, we had 3 time penalties for going TOO FAST - perhaps the time spent trying to train him to gallop better has had a result.
Fizz was also relatively naughty in his dressage, but his judge must have been wearing rose-tinted spectacles as she LOVED him and he still had a good score. He also jumped clear show jumping and cross country (see photo), jumping superbly through several tricky combination fences including a double of angled hedges. However, Rachel nursed him round due to him feeling a leg in the run up to the event, and he picked up a few time penalties which put him out of the placings.
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