"We had an added competition this week as we were unable to get Delboy (Headmore Delegate) to Wellington due to the circumstances. This meant that we made a late entry at Merrist Wood on Saturday 7th November to try and get our medium music qualification.

As it was Delboy’s first medium music test, we didn’t have a floor plan and, with not enough time to make another tape, I had to ‘hash together’ a test to our elementary tape. Thankfully, this proved very easy as it only took one practice!

As it was Andrew’s day off and my sister hadn’t come from uni, so I went with Nicky, who keeps her horse with us. It was a fairly early start and quite chilly, so plaiting proved difficult as my fingers very quickly succumbed to the cold! I had expected that this might happen, so I had allowed plenty of time and the plaits turned out well… even Mum was impressed!

When we arrived, it was even colder at Merrist Wood than it had been at home, something I hadn’t thought possible! Nicky and I handed in our music and I had to wait, as Nicky’s test was first. To stop myself from freezing, I dosed myself up with cups of tea, the theory being to warm myself up from the inside out.

Delboy warmed up well and his test, which we had made quite difficult and fiddly, flowed well and he made no mistakes. I was very pleased with how easy he had made it feel and my Mum, who came to a competition for the first time since the Nationals in September, said that it looked good, so despite having put it together to just qualify, I think I might keep that floor plan for the regionals! The judge obviously thought it looked good as well, as we achieved a massive score of 78.13%, the highest score of the day, and qualified. That completed my regional qualifications for the winters… yay!"