Aston Le Walls. August 7th National Horse Trial Championship

The horses were settled in their temporary stables with grass floors just as the rain began. And it did not stop.

We walked the cross country course with the rain seeping down our necks, running off our noses ,soaking our trousers and beyond. The course itself was bigger and more technical than the qualifying course. Alice who has jumped over pre novice height fences was unfazed and relished the challenge. Rebecca who was still relatively inexperienced at this height was terrified, and from my perspective, I think she had a point! It included a jump up onto a bank , a jump on the bank, a jump off followed immediately by a skinny. Another combination was up a steep and rapidly becoming slippery slope with a jump at the top falling down the slope on landing. The width of many of these jumps was also significant. At one fence the novice was more daunting in size than the intermediate. Kirsty describes wide fences as rider scarers - well it certainly succeeded for Rebecca and me!

When we returned the field was filling up. I was slightly alarmed to note that the gaps between the lorries and between the rows would prevent any one without a harrier jump jet from leaving.
The rain continued . There were wet horses, wet riders, wet helpers and wet stewards.
The children had decided sleeping in the car was the driest option and I opted for the trailer. The horses by now were standing in water (if they were lucky) and mud if they were not.
We retired to bed, wet and fairly pessimistic about what tomorrow would bring.
Seventeen hours of continual rain which finally stopped at 5.30 am
Imagine Glastonbury, 800 people, several hundred lorries, several hundred horses and mud as far as the eye could see and you are probably not even close.
The cross country was cancelled for all but the 3 days event which they were deferring the decision on. That left us with dressage and show jumping on an all weather arena. The girls acquitted themselves well both being around 10/30 in their respective arenas.

They then did a clear round of jumps followed by a timed jump off round. I had expected the times round to be given points in the same way as dressage so as to balance the two disciplines. However this is not the way
it is done. All the clears got zero penalty points so it basically came down to ‘ how good is your dressage'.

Alice is much stronger in her jumping and was 8/90 in the jump off but there were no points allocated for this. Rebecca had a complete attack of the nerves and was unfortunately eliminated.

However the sun began to shine and spirits were restored . My attention returned to our escape plan. The discussion with the car park supervisor had established the fact that he did not realise some people were there for one day, some for two and others three. There was one tractor who was currently towing people in. There was an unofficial gate near us direct on to the road which I had had my eye on. One woman had made an attempt on it and got stuck requiring a disgruntled tractor driver to extract her. I planned my route, pressed every button that looked appropriate in the car, found a dry patch, gained some speed then rallied my way out with trailer ( minus horses) attached ……Success we were on our way back!
We had had a great time. It had been a fabulous experience in spite of the weather. Alice is just dying to do it all again, Rebecca is not so sure!

Katie Goldie