Today I had my first show of the season with Eva (De La Vega) at Merrist Wood and I’m pleased and relieved to say she was brilliant! It was a testing day for me because Mum had to take my brother to a hockey match and she couldn’t come with me. So it was just me and my groom Katrina, I felt very grown up! And also a little scared as I had to negotiate my way around Guildford town centre in busy Saturday afternoon traffic, but we managed and got there in plenty of time.

Then we found out that Eva was in season, which made me more apprehensive because I wasn’t sure if that would make her better or worse behaved! Turned out it made her lazy and noisy but workable! She neighed a lot, even in the tests, which was annoying, but she listened and was responsive all day and I was very pleased with her. As there was only one Elementary test we decided to do the Novice qualifier as well to ease her back into competing, and she went brilliantly winning it with 70%. Then we had about 15 minutes before the Elementary and she started to get a bit grumpy as was getting tired. However I kept up the pressure and she got on with the work and we won with 68%. All in all a good day - oh apart from getting lost in Guildford on the way home! Oops!