Cara Shardlow – Winter Nationals

April was a rather busy month, Detonator had a trip down to the Winter Nationals in the Advanced Medium Freestyle which he qualified for back in February. He won down there last year but in the Petplan finals which are held in the outdoor arenas, the previous two times he has been to the proper nationals which are held in the indoor arena he has totally lost the plot with the atmosphere finishing near the bottom. So I wasn’t holding out much hope but doing the arena walk with Charlotte Dujardin in the morning obviously bucked his ideas up and he was brilliant!

He lit up just enough but was so rideable and we got a lovely clear round, one judge said he needed more sparkle, but I’d rather have that than the fireworks we normally have!! He got just under 69% and although on the same score as 10th we had slightly less collectives dropping us to 11th just missing out on my first nationals top 10, I’ll do it one day!!

We then headed to Keysoe Premier League to do the PSG and Inter 1’s, the standard was incredibly high! He produced a lovely PSG test with two judges having up in the high 60%’s but one had us on a 63% dropping my final mark but just outside the top 10, silly mistakes in the Inter 1 left us in the mid 60’s and about mid way. The last class was the PSG freestyle and I went for more energy and it worked giving us 5th place!!

He has some more Premier leagues coming up and will be working towards regionals in July.

The other two boys went to Snainton and wiped the board winning all 4 classes between then and gaining some much needed Regional points.

They then headed to Northallerton, Mario had a bit of an insecure moment and screamed his way round the novice test with large spooks, a bit disappointing as I thought he was growing in confidence. He then did his first Elementary and although still tense was good gaining 66%.

Sando was on form again winning a strong Elementary class in the 70% and completing qualification for summer regionals. He then did a medium test and gained a qualifying score towards regionals and won.
They head off to Snainton next.

Promised Land had a good trip to a new venue and he was brilliant gaining over 70% in the prelim and was then dropped in the deep end to do a novice gaining a respectable 66%, I was very pleased with him and now need to find the time to get him out jumping!

The Garlic Balancers are coming out again now as the flys and midges are coming out, they especially help Sando who really struggles with the midges rubbing his mane to bits so he has one from now until winter. The babies out in the field also start swapping their Original Balancer for a Garlic one.