biggest grin ever:

i am so thrilled with the boy today, yes we had a few leaps and launches when i first went in to the warm up, but he settled beautifully in the ring and held his breath as he scuttled past the scary judges hut, instead of spooking and was just so grown up bless him.

some complete twat came thundering across the car park in a jack hammer trot, cantered down the track to the warm up and shot in to the midst, scattering people left right and centre which really didnt help get the canter soft over the back and swinging. fortunately we beat said twat by a metric mile, despite him passaging and extended cantering his poor horse for an hour.......

second warm up for N38 was much more relaxed and i got the trot iv been getting at home, and we even took it in to the ring in parts :)

kitty, my 13yo livery, and i made a pact on sat that we would both ride our canters, instead of freezing rabbit in headlight style and im pleased to report that she set a flying standard on sat with 67.5 in novice trailblazers and 64 in her first elem trailblazers, so a lot for me to live up to...

...really tried to keep the canter rocking on and up and not too delicate show pony-ish, and was pleased to see from pics that we managed 2 perfect square halts (this has been something iv worked on all damn week so at last, hurrah!).

im gobsmacked and proud to report 73.8% in N22 and 69.6% in N38 and TWO red ones, so thats 2/3 of a regional qual in the bag,yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!

3 weeks off now for ken, then general plan is to do keysoe and addington premier league 5yo classes and get our final novice regional win, before end of june. fingers crossed!

pics here