December is again very busy with shows and travelling. The first weekend was spent at Tonimbuk Equestrian Centre for their World Cup Show. We were there from Thursday night and although the weather had been pretty wet up till then we were lucky over the weekend with lovely conditions. We were really pleased, all the horses jumped well with Cera Tylo Feel the Heat jumping double clean rounds in the D grades and CP Annibell jumped well in the C grades, this was her first show for the season as she had a few months off with a minor injury. Animate placed 8th in the World Cup on Saturday night. It was a great event as usual with a fabulous atmosphere as the indoor arena was full of spectators.
A week later we headed back to Sydney to compete at the Sydney International Equestrian Centre World Cup Show. We had not been to the venue before and were very impressed with the facilities. The venue was built for the Sydney Olympics and has been maintained beautifully. The stables were magnificent all undercover and there were two huge areas with the main arena having a very large grand stand and trade stall area.
Again, all the horses jumped well but it was very tough to get a place with huge competition. Havelock Batman placed 6th in the 1.10m on Sunday. We were really pleased with Animate in the World Cup. He finished in 11th place with a really solid round.
As it was the final for the World Cup season and they had flown in international course designer Leopoldo Palacious from Europe, the course was very tough. Fourteen fences with a double and a treble. Although I only got to compete in four World Cup’s this season due to only having Animate for a few months we were really pleased to still finish in the top 20 across Australia on the final overall leader board.
We had planned on giving the horses a break over Christmas but as they were all going well and were really fit we decided to go to Bega Show at the end of December. Animate jumped double clean on the first day and finished 3rd in the 1.40m and then jumped clean and had the fastest time in the jump off for the Bega Cup but just had the vertical down coming out of the double therefor, finishing 4th.
A junior student of mine, Natasha Dickson, also travelled with us with her new horse LH Warsaw we recently found for her, previously campaigned by Wes Joyce. She had a great time jumping all double clears with just one down in the jump off of the Junior Championship. Jamie Ellis, another student placed 3rd in this class with a double clean.