Little Downham - BE Holly

Well Little Dowham what a wild and windy adventure you were! 

After an 8.5hr journey there. Yes, you read that right! The M25 on Friday is NOT recommended so we arrived at our location 3.5hrs later than planned and settled in for the night in gale force winds. Luckily Holly isn't particularly flappable and didn't blow away in the night! 

The dressage was going the best yet! The trot work much improved and she remained settled in the awful wind. Maybe I got complacent or maybe she was just checking I was awake but an expensive mistake in the canter brought 2 4's into our score sheet and that dashed our dressage score to 33.9. So close but yet so far from the PB I know we've got in us! 

Showjumping she cruised round for a very keen clear round!

And then the fun bit across country. A very technical track that was causing plenty of issues all the way round. We were having an absolute blast and she was flying up on the clock. Then at fence 16 the red flag was waved and we were held on the course due to a rider fall further round. Just over 5 mins on course we were given the green light to go so foot down and off we went. Holly was straight back on the ball and popped beautiful through a technical question at 17 before finishing with a clean sheet. Unfortunately for us their back calculations gave us 6.4 time faults, to which I objected too as there was no way we were thay far over the time but they refused to budge on their decision.

So what should have been a 6th place finish pushed us down to 15th.

A weekend of so close but so far I feel. But Holly's fit, sound and happily back home. In only 5 hours travel time I might add! 

So we re route for one last crack at Bicton 3 day. Come on lady luck!! 

@epuk_southwest 

@equineproductsukltd 

@botanicainternational 

@voltairedesignuk