Show Jumping in the rain!

Wet, wet, and more wet. Show jumping on a grass field in the pouring rain….. why?

Yesterday we took Bea and Hugo to the urban surroundings of Sunbury for the London and South East area riding club team championships. Luckily we had both qualified in different teams, but this did mean that we were competing against each other!

The first issue was that Hugo seems to have fallen for the beautiful chestnut mare known as Bea! He just threw all his toys out of the pram when he was separated from Bea. Add to this separation anxiety the pouring rain and mud bath, meant that his show jumping, usually as guaranteed clear, was a disaster.

Bea now seems to have got over her infatuations of Hugo and jumper her socks off producing a clear first round. The weather had taken it's toll on the ground by the time we jumped our second round and we are using this as our excuse for knocking two poles to come home with a overall score of 8 penalties, placing our team into 4th place. Big smiles for Bea and I! Boo and Hugo's team managed to plough home into 5th place so at least all of Team Buckley went home with rosettes!

Just to round the day off, Boo had agreed to make up the numbers for the team Dressage competition, their fondness for dressage is well known and after a disastrous morning of show jumping in the miserable rain their fondness had completely evaporated! The dressage arena was next door to the cross-country course and all Hugo seems to be concentrating on was the fact that he was not going cross country!

Home for warm Pimms cocktails and puppy frolicking with Bonnie and Hudson… smiles at last.

(No pictures due bad horse behavior and the appauling weather)