On Thursday I took Eva and Listzes to Royal Leisure, which is my closest venue. Eva was a little sharp in the warm up to start with and was doing her best to uphold her reputation of trouble maker at that show! But after a while she settled down. Because I know she needs a good 50 minutes warm up there was no hurry for her to calm down, she still has to wear her red ribbon to keep other horses at a safe distance but she is getting better with them.

We had stiff competition in the Elementary tests as my home trainer Suzanne Lavendara was in the class as well as Daniel Timpson. But I’m happy to report she was first to go and held the lead in both classes to win with 71% and 68%. I then had a manic changeover to get Listzes out, and as Eva’s second class had run late I ended up with just 20 minutes to warm him up! Luckily he’s a cool dude, and although he hasn’t competed for two years he took it all in his stride. As it’s been such a long time I didn’t put any pressure on him, just gave him a happy ride to build his confidence. His scores of 62% and 64% are low of course but considering the mistakes we made I was pleased with him, in fact I was very pleased with the whole day!

On a different topic I have just been out to collect my whippet Hugo from the vet where he’s been since Tuesday. Unfortunately he contracted meningitis, which of course is very serious and in dogs seems to affect their spinal and joint fluid. It’s been a nerve wracking few days hoping he was going to be ok, but he’s home now and seems better. Now I just have to contemplate the massive bill!