So I’d say an educational 4 days at the All England Jumping Championships Hickstead. Fair to say we didn’t take the place by storm – but we certainly had fun!
Wednesday 2 September – Arrival
Arrived about lunchtime and settled the horses into their stables, next door to each other, with Una in the end stable. Nice quiet location at the back of the field, looking towards the hedge. Here he is looking very big in his stable!
Once we were settled, we got tacked up and went for a hack around the showground and had a short schooling session in the main ring warm up arena (it was empty). We watched some jumping and then tucked the horses in for the night. We came back to do evening checks after supper, at about 9pm. Nash was fine, but Una had been kicking at the ‘open end’ side of her stable (luckily not the Nash side), and had caused a bit of damage!
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Thursday 3 September – Class 119 – All England 1.00m Open Championship – DISCOVERY
Ring 3 – Table A competition in two phases against the clock
Height: 1.00m (DISCOVERY)
Speed: 325mpm
136th to go / 174 entries
Sooo windy today, fences were blowing over and the cups had to be turned over on the planks. Ring 3 is an all weather arena in the centre of the showground.
Very pleased with how relaxed Nash was today, especially as he had a lot of trauma this morning with Una moving away (as she had demolished her stable overnight), which upset him.
4 fences down, but that was mostly down to lacking a good rhythm/stride. I was so excited to be actually jumping at Hickstead!
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Friday 4 September – Class 134 – All England 1.00m Open Championship – DISCOVERY
Ring 4 – Table A competition in two phases against the clock
Height: 1.00m (DISCOVERY)
Speed: 325mpm
105th to go / 252 entries
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Saturday 5 September – Class 142 – Senior British Novice Championship
Ring 3 – Table A competition in two phases against the clock
Height: 90cm (BRITISH NOVICE)
Speed: 325mpm
109th to go / 116 entries
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Sunday 6 September – Class 158 – All England Arena Eventing Championship
Ring 4 and XC arena – Single Phase Jumping Competition
Height: 90cm
13th to go / 55 entries
Nash loved this – despite our lack of XC jump training!
We demolished fence 5 (SJ fence) and had a stop into fence 9 (skinny going into the next arena – which I didn’t appear to bother to ride)!! Otherwise I was really pleased with our round, and had a lot of fun!