We did it! Our first competition

So we finally did it and went to our first competition. All I can say is that it was fabulous and I am totally hooked again. I have already booked us in for our first "official" British Eventing one day event in July - just have to work on improving the keeness of our groom (otherwise known as Mark :)

The competition was just a small 2ft6 cross country class but it was mainly to see how Sam (and I!) got on. As I had expected Sam got very very excited as soon as we arrived as he thought he was going racing. He calmed down a bit one we were underway but you can tell from the photos that he was often too busy staring at the crowd to really concentrate on the jumping! Nonetheless we went clear but I'm not sure if we got placed as I couldn't be bothered to wait around for the (literally) hundreds of other entrants to finish.

Photos are all taken by Mark (who makes a much better and willing photographer than he does groom). I will put up the professional ones once they finally get loaded onto their website.

At the start and feeling very nervous ...

Coming up the hill following fence 2 - it doesn't look it but I was SO happy at this point to be out competing again :)

Jumping fence 3 - even though we practice over pre-novice fences at home (3ft+) he still dangles his little legs sometimes as the photo shows. Think I need to aim for bigger fences in our next competition

Getting into the swing of things half way through

And finally showing just how focused I was on some of the trickier fences (!) - coming towards a bank with a double on top

Plan is to go to a British Eventing tri zone training event in July and then an Intro in September. Can't wait!