Bugsy wins first time out!

We made a fairly last minute decision to enter Bugsy in his first competition, after taking him to Carl's for a lesson last week we realised he was ready to be 'seen'. He proved that he was more than ready by winning both the medium and the advanced medium on really good scores which qualified us the regionals in the Ad Medium and partly at medium. He was really great in the warm up and was only a little tense in the first test, to be expected as its his first outing since October. Its such a shame the photographer wasn't there I'm sure he would have made a pic in Horse and Hound, we'll have to settle for a write up.
Lucky also proved he's back on form by winning the PSG on 67%, He was much calmer and although he still wanted to get hot in the canter work, this time I was able to control him and we completed the test without any mistakes.It seems his new regime of daily turn out and reduced walking is working so we bravely entered Somerford Premier League next weekend hoping this test wasn't a one off!

Sheepgate Premier League

Charlie in piaffe

Last week we headed up to Lincolnshire for a busy few days at Sheepgate, Charlie entered in the Inter II both days and Lucky in both PSG and Inter I both days! Charlie seems to be much more consistent this year with another 2nd place in the Inter II, the first day was not great, I over cooked the warm up and he was tight and flat so the next day I changed to a fairly short warm up and only put the pressure on in the last 5 minutes, this seemed to work well and he did a good test with 8's for his one and two tempi changes.The foreign judge had us placed first by 10 marks ahead of Teutone, an established Grand Prix horse so that was very encouraging especially as he had judged very harshly all week.Charlie is out again next week at Addington to test the new warm up regime before the next Premier League on the 16th May.
The plan this time for Lucky was to see if two tests a day would take the edge off him.It seemed to be working the first day when he did a fairly steady Inter I and with quite a few mistakes was 5th place but the second day he came out very electric again and after some good trot work he blew up in the canter which was such a shame as he was feeling much more under control than last time out,the conclusion this time is that he is getting too fit, having a fair bit of thoroughbred in him we need to adjust his training system from the other warmbloods so he's going to walk only 20 minutes a day instead of the 1 hour 45mins that the others do and we are going to get him turning out everyday for a few days unwind.