Win at Aston le Walls for Louis

Louis competed in the competitive Open Novice section at Aston Le Walls.

Team Coakley (aka Mum) and I were out on the yard at 5am in order to leave home in the horse box by 6am to start our trundle down the motorway to Northamptonshire.

Phase one was the dressage, which had one blip but felt relaxed and accurate, we scored 26.5, which placed equal best in the section.

Next was the show jumping, a nice course built on a surface which is always a nice surprise! Luckily there was a break so I could walk the course then jump on Louis and warm up. Louis jumped a great clear, so we were still in the lead!

Onto the cross country phase....

The course was brilliant, decorated nicely with some elaborate wood carvings and the ground conditions were good. Number four on the course was a palisade, into the water, then one stride and another palisade, followed by a double, made up of a cannon and gun cartridge. There were then some galloping fences until number 7 ABC which consisted of two big steps up, the ground then ran away quickly and you had to ride downhill to a sharp corner fence. The course rode brilliantly, Louis loved every second of it! He was really bold into both water complex's and he really listened to me through the tricky combinations and enjoyed all the galloping fences at speed! We had 1.6 time penalties added to our dressage score and finished on 28.1, to Win the Open Novice section!

And to make a great day even better.... he won a trophy!