Montrave HT today

Today Team Hopalong headed off to Montrave for our first solo XC of the year. :) We were doing the 90cm course which had plenty of questions including a couple of ditchy fences, a sunken road that had a real murky bottom to it, a couple of combination fences on funny distances and a step into water, eeek! (full course pics here)

We were lucky with the weather, lovely sunshine while we were riding, but all the recent rain had left the ground really soft. "Princess" Heidi does not like mud very much and when the ground is soft and churned up she likes to get in close! Also a bit of rustiness on both our parts meant we were being a bit "looky" and not kicking on as we should have been.

However, the ditchy fences jumped lovely, one of the combinations I was worried about jumped lovely, (the other she squeezed an extra stride in and we got a rather "upwards" jump over the second part leaving me worried we may part ways, but luckily not!) and although she took a look at both the murky drop at the sunken road and the water, she did go. :)

So a clear round (although over the time by a fair amount due to mud/rustiness!) and now we hopefully both have remembered what it's all about, remembered that we can do it and will kick on and have a more flowing round next time out. :) Our first BE is at Kirriemuir and now only 2 weeks away! Fingers crossed the snow that has been forecast for the next couple of weeks is just the met office playing an early April Fool's joke?!

Some photos courtesy of Bob. Rustiness definitely showing in rider's position, most embarrassing!

Over fences 1, 2 and 3;

Fence 16 (actually beefier than it looks in the photo, honest! ;) )
In and out of the water- much happier going out the way than in! ;)

And a wee video courtesy of us jumping the trakhener at 5, then bank to rails at 6 and over ditch/log at 7. Video courtesy of my friend Lisa (who did brilliantly and came 4th! :D )