I would like to thank Bethan, Iona and the Flint and Denbigh branch for giving me the opportunity to enter the Burghley Young Event Pony last weekend. Unfortunately Alice Davies Cooke and Bosco had to drop out last minute with an injury and so we gladly took their place.
I have always wanted to go to Burghley and to go there and compete was even better. It was a long way to travel for Stanley but he was really good and either ate or slept all the way there and back. We had an amazing place to stay at the Oso Stud in Ashton and it was only 4 miles from Burghley, the stables were immaculate and we also had an arena to work in. Jake Vaughan-Thomas’s pony Felix was stabled there too. We went down on the Friday so that we could watch the cross country on the Saturday and then Saturday night we had a bbq in the field and had a really great time with the Davies-Cookes and Vaughan-Thomas’s.
We went down to Burghley early on the Sunday so that we could watch Jake and cheer him on as he had the earlier section, Jake and Felix had a great round. Then we went to tack up Stanley and for me to get ready. I was the 8th person to go in and Stan did a lovely dressage test and stayed really calm in the buzzing ring and then it was straight into the jumping phase. Stan was quite forward in this section as he loves his jumping but he did it all without any faults. When we finished we had the biggest cheers of the day from the Flint and Denbigh crowd in the stands and then it was announced that we had gone into the lead!! But there was about another 30 to go and we eventually ended up 6th which was amazing as Stan is only 5 years old and he hadn’t done anything like this before in such a huge event. I had a brilliant experience at Burghley and would like to thank all those who supported me, I would also like to thank Sionedd O’Connor for her very useful advice and help the week before. Also big thanks to my mum for driving me there and back and being a top groomJ. Below are some photos taken by Phoebe.
