After the success we had at our last competition, I was very much looking forward to competing Leo (Cappuccino H) again for my boss Sarah Millis. As he’s still relatively green in the arena, he needs to be going out and competing as much as possible, regardless of the level or the result. He has been going great at home, his trot feels amazing and he just has so much bounce and energy! We seem to have made a lot of progress with the lateral movements as he actually relaxes in them now and keeps good rhythm and swing.

This time we took him to Royal Leisure to compete in the affiliated Elementary and Medium classes. Unfortunately, as it had rained all day long, when we arrived at the show the warm up arena was like a swimming pool! Leo was brilliant though and took it all in his stride, even though most of our work was done on a 20 metre circle in the middle of the arena! I will admit to being a little bit silly, as instead of learning the Elementary 53 I learnt the 43 and after turning the wrong way, had to ask Mum to read me the rest of the test… oops! Leo took my ‘blonde’ moment in his stride and performed a lovely fluent test, scoring 70%, which went on to win the class. But as I’m sure you would expect, as soon as I left the arena my family and David – Sarah’s partner - all stood ready to laugh at me for my mistake!

As I entered the arena for my second test the banter continued, and this time from the judge who shouted at me, ‘Got the right test this time?’ Unfortunately, I didn’t prove it was a one-off mistake, as even though Mum was calling the test for me I still managed to go wrong! Fortunately, one of us was on good form. Leo was a saint in only our second Medium class. His lateral work has improved so much, and I can push for more in the movements instead of sitting and taking whatever I am given. We scored 66% and won that class too, yay! The judge loved Leo and asked whether it was just her or ‘Does he look a lot like Escapado?’ (Carl Hester's former ride and now with Hans Peter Minderhoud). And so for the rest of the day Leo was known as Peanuts (Escapado’s stable name) and I was known as 'idiot'!