I'z Kool aka Flynn: April 2008

Entered Woodhill Sands as thankfully with all the hard ground about, at least I knew it was all on soft ground! LOL Booked in mine & Flynn's accomodation at Chateau de Mel for Friday and Saturday night as I was on at 8.50 in the morning for dressage.
Dressage went really well, we managed to get 8th equal. Starting to be a far cry from the days of finishing last or 2nd to last in the class!

Then it was time for SJing, our favourite part!! There was quite a bit of carnage in the SJing, heaps of rails & refusals. We went clear, which put us into 1st place overnight by 0.2%. Nothing like a bit of pressure!

Day of the XC came around & good grief, I was super nervous! LOL If I could go clear, I would be able to finish top 4 & that would have been my qualifier for Taupo. Good bold course, our only downfall was that you had to jump over a log into the water jump which I hadn't expected, training up until now has always been small drops with a ramp option, but not today! Flynn was super awesome on the XC course, went to spook at a few things but thought better of it & just powered over everything in front of him.

In fact we were going great guns, until we had to cross the arena to get to the water jump. He stopped & spun around about 200m away from the water jump which nearly got me off as I was not expecting it whatsoever!! Managed to turn him & get over to the water jump but still had a stop at the water, circled & went in with guns blazing on the next attempt, go the ugly arm photo!

Then off to do the rest of the course & he just carried on flying around. Over the chevron half way up the steep hill, over the big corner up the hill, over everything. He even came straight down the steep hill with no hesitations, such a far cry from the Henderson ODE!! It was such a great feeling, I got off, for the first time ever, I felt like I could have gone again. Wow, I actually just enjoyed an XC course. What the?!! LOL