"Osberton was the final three-day of the year and I was looking forward to it, as I felt all three of my entries could be competitive. Things were a bit complicated before we left as Elodie had to stay at home due to a minor staff crisis. Nevertheless, my mum and I set off with three horses for the Young Horse Championships -Billy On Air (Pip), Dinky Inky (Inky) and Wolfgang Penelope (Lacey). 

The weather was amazing - possibly even too hot, bizarre considering last year we had nearly drowned in mud and rain. Dressage day came and I was feeling positive after our great weekend at South of England the week before, where all of the horses performed brilliantly in the first phase.

Unexplained dressage scores

All three horses felt lovely in their tests but all got disappointing marks. It is not easy to describe the feeling of performing well only to look at the scoreboard and discover the judges do not agree with you. On further inspection, the whole of the Seven-Year-Old class were marked hard so Lacey’s score of 53.5 was actually competitive. The other two however were well off the pace and it is difficult to understand how in one week the same horse can go from a score of 39.1 to a 53.5 with what felt like little difference between the tests. It is a shame sometimes that dressage marking can be so subjective.

Back to the fun stuff…

Anyway, eventing is not just about dressage - thank goodness - so on to the fun stuff. Pip and Inky were absolutely fabulous in the show jumping and the cross-country, both producing a double clear inside the time. This pulled them up the order with Pip finishing 11^th and Inky 17^th. I am thrilled with them both as they have been fabulous pretty much all season and it was a positive end to their season.

…Back to basics

When I got on Lacey to warm her up for her cross-country round she was verging on psychotic. She was just so excited about the whole thing, but I was not too worried as she is such a good cross-country horse and normally settles once we get going.

The first few fences were great but when we came to the first water complex things started to go wrong. She scrambled into the water and we managed to get through without penalty but it was not pretty. We carried on but she was not herself and later on she ran past a fence, so I decided to pull her up. As it turned out, we had managed to jump the wrong fence when having trouble in an earlier combination so we were technically eliminated anyway, which I hadn't realised at the time.

I was disappointed because she has been such a great cross-country horse and it was a shame to finish the season like that. In hindsight, I think her fall in Haras du Pin had knocked her confidence more than we had realised and we probably need to go back to basics for a while to get back on track. I am considering giving her a mini holiday and then trying to fit in a quiet Novice run somewhere to regain confidence. We will have to see how she is when we get home.

Season draws to a close

All in all it was a difficult week, very busy without my normal team but I would like to thank my mum who worked so hard and looked after me. Not much of the season left but we still seem to have plenty to do. A busy weekend at Pulborough next with a lorry load of young ones, then a couple more Intermediate outings - wish us luck!”

Bye for now,

Gemma

To find out more about Gemma - and the horses she mentions in her blog - watch our video: Meet Gemma and her horses