30/08/2025
The eventing hiatus is over, and Dilys finally got to go a party 🥳🖤
The demon child has had a quiet couple of months since her last run in June. The ground has just been too hard to play eventing, so she’s been quietly ticking along at home whilst we all did our best rain dance. However when Llands Eventing offered to cover the gap in the calendar at the end of this month with the additional promise of good going, I stuck an entry in for the 90 at Offchurch Bury.
In the Dressage Dilys had me giggling most of the way round, largely due to how offended she was by the flowers at E and B, and how she either spooked or threatened to kick them each time we passed 😅 There was some nice work, there was some very much not so nice work, but the judge decided everything was a 6.5 or 7 🙄 so we were on 34.3. Just inside the top ten.
Show jumping this time it was the flags which caused offence. Though in Dilys defence the wind was blowing a gale to the point one of the jumps kept getting blown over. It wasn’t a tidy round, she was rather strong and running through the bridle, and we did have the second part of the double down because she made up way too much ground. However she never thought about stopping, not even when she had to ride directly at those scary flags to an upright of equally scary wavy planks. I love her ‘if in doubt, attack it more’ mentality and have every confidence her show jumping will improve with more mileage under her belt 🥰
Finally on to the cross country. The wind had really picked up by then, and dark soggy looking clouds were starting to roll in. Dilys set off in her usual exuberant fashion and felt right at home over the first few easy fences.
I think the cross country course was one of my favourites of this season so far. It was so clever, using all the natural up and down, twisty turny bits whilst remaining not in the slightest trappy or unfair. It asked some pretty decent questions for this level, but they rewarded forward attacking riding, which is just what a little demon pony loves.
She had an absolute blast, and whilst we were a bit scrappy in places she was clever and bold and having an absolute ball the entire time. She was also remarkably controllable, and did some cracking coming back to me and rebalancing on the rather steep downhill sections, completely off my seat.
Except at the penultimate fence, a box to a corner. My intention was to pop part A quietly to get on a good line to the corner. Dilys had other ideas, and with the finish line in sight and still up on the time, she took a stride out at A and then bowled on down to the corner where she took another stride out, went airborne, and then galloped on home clear over the final fence with a very smug smile on her face 😇🙈🚀
In spite of the somewhat cheeky dressage, and a pole jumping, we picked up at rossie for 10th ☺️
Next stop, the Cotswold Cup Three Day Event Championships. I cannot wait to turn her loose on the steeplechase 💪
