The perfect end to a great season

The event season has now come to an end and what a year it has been. The highlight definitely has to be winning the U25 National Championships at Bramham, other memorable moments Collien P 2 enjoying the mud and relaxing in her field.[/caption] including making my Nations Cup debut earlier in the year at Houghton International. Although the horses don't have long term holidays they will have some time off in the field to reflect and regroup both mentally and physically ahead of their winter training.         Collien P 2 is now qualified for the 4* and will hopefully head to Badminton next year which is all rather exciting. Although it is still a long way away, things will come around quickly after Christmas so she will have to be super fit and ready for action come the start of the [caption id="attachment_20430" align="alignright" width="300"] Livingstone at Little Downham.[/caption] season next March. She was super at Blenheim, finishing up 6th in our first Senior CCI3* together. By far our best test together for a 39 which was good enough for 2nd after the first day of dressage. It was a shame that so many of the lower scores came on the afternoon of the second day but unfortunately these things happen! We were early to go XC on Saturday morning so I didn't have chance to watch any go before me, but I stuck to my plan and we sailed round just 5 seconds over the optimum time. She was a little strong and I felt like I wasted time in the first few minutes setting up for fences. Nevertheless, the cross country caused its fair share of problems and we moved up a place to 5th overnight. She [caption id="attachment_20432" align="alignleft" width="300"] Elstar flying at litte Downham.[/caption] jumped super on Sunday afternoon, just having one rail down at the first part of the influential treble. She has improved massively over the course of this season and we are all very excited about her future!   Livingstone finished off his season with a win in the competitive OI section at Little Downham, on what might have been our last run together. He hasn't taken to 3* as well as we'd hoped and we feel he may be better suited with a Junior or Young Rider to go and [caption Will with his number one fan, his Mum! win some more medals. Elstar picked up a couple of smart placings in her last two events and is starting to become a bit more established at Intermediate level now. She is a big horse at 17.1hh and has taken a long time to catch up physically, having only started eventing as a 6-year-old. We still have very high hopes of her and we will aim for her Blenheim 8/9 year olds next year.     We will now have some quieter time on the yard; doing some cleaning and sorting out the winter rugs. We will get the babies out to some local hunter trials before having a holiday in preparation for the start of their eventing careers next year!