June was a fun month for me. After Houghton it was half term and David, my husband,  Emily, Freddie and I had a lovely last minute family holiday in Marrakech. What a treat it was to have 5 days solid sunshine!

On our return the build up to Greenwich began. We had our first squad training session at William Fox-Pitts yard in Dorset for 3 days. It was great for the 5 of us to get together for dressage lessons with our team trainer Tracie Robinson and  jumping training with Peter Murphy. Yogi Breisner our performance manager organised a visit to Greenwich Park in conjunction with a press conference at the Royal Naval College.

I took both Archie and Tess to Salperton Horse Trials, they both performed smart dressage tests and clear show jump rounds. I decided not to run them across country because of Barbary Horse Trials the following weekend.

Barbary is a wonderful event. Luckily, although the rain fell and the wind blew, the going on the cross country course was perfect. The event went according to plan for me with both horses doing good tests (I was a bit disappointed with Archie’s mark), a superb clear show jumping and XC with Archie and 1 show jump down and lovely clear XC with Tess. That was Archie’s last run before Greenwich, they will both go to the British Open Champs at Gatcombe on July 13th-15th. I plan to run Tess there but just do the dressage with Archie.

Chubby had a short holiday after Houghton and has returned to competition with a win at Nutwell Horse Trials yesterday, clever boy! He is also going to Gatcombe as has qualified for the British Novice Champs. Jay has had to have a couple of extra weeks holiday following Houghton due to being kicked, so will start his Autumn campaign early August.

Best wishes

Mary