Blenheim!

Ok… so I have been a bit bad about keeping everyone updated on Blenheim, but we were slow to get WiFi in the barns here and then no charge on the computer yesterday! Excuses, excuses!
Dressage was super! We actually won the dressage on a 36.9!!!! HUGE!!! The cool thing is I could have easily been 5 points better.
I loved the look of the xc course. There was plenty of difficult things to do and time was going to be really hard to make. I was mostly worried about the table turning question to the corner. It was quite a big table downhill left hand turn to the corner in four forward strides. There was a safer way to add strides, but would be costly in time. To make time you would have to come out of the box fast, be smart in your galloping lines and not take any options.
I had a great xc school at Anne Taylor’s farm on Tuesday. We worked on letting him have his neck more in his gallop and riding really forward, jumping the fences out of stride without over setting/slowing him up.
I went out on xc today determined to have a really great forward round, and to make time! My horse was phenomenal and I felt like I rode him really well. Everything went along like clockwork. There were a number of combinations that you had a choice between a more forward stride or an added stride. We easily did the more forward stride everywhere and we were on our minute markers all the way around the course. The second to last fence on our way home was a corner to corner combination. I set him up but probably needed to slow him down a bit more to make the stride as we got there in 4 1/2 and had a STUPID runout…. two from home!!!! I feel like such an a** as my horse should be winning this competition by about 10 points right now!!!! So frustrating. I was still only 8 seconds slow! I think I am on a 60.1 and in about 15th place. SO irritating.
Mark Phillips and Anne Taylor were really positive about my round. I am mad because I feel like I should be winning one of these big competitions and I should be going into showjumping tomorrow with a 10 point lead. Shoulda coulda woulda… I guess I will chalk it up for experience. Sorry Arthur!!!!
Being here at Blenheim was the best thing I could have done after last week. My horse was all class and made easy work of a really tough course. I am ready to trump Olliver Townend at Rolex next year!!!!