So a bloody scorcher of a day at Rackham Cross Country Course yesterday, but what a fab day!
So… BE90 first!
Brian tried his heart out and gave a lovely dressage test and a brilliant round of show jumping (but he eats show jumps for breakfast, the Beast holds nothing over him). But sadly he just didn’t have the confidence for quite an open cross country course (I’m sure he is agoraphobic, give him an arena and his stable and he is happy as me in the pub!), so a bit of pure show jumping for him for a while I think! Let the cogs in his head mesh again.
Tigger and Helen provided a very relaxed dressage test (so relaxed she couldn’t find the enthusiasm to take a contact!) But that proceeded to pull a fab round of show jumping out of the bag with a dropped toe taking the rear rail on the LAST jump, how bloody infuriating! But then she stormed round the cross country and hit every stride perfectly before crossing the line without any time penalties, and without a watch! Brat/Barbie pony did good.
And for the BE100…
But now it’s the main event! The man we have all been waiting for, it’s DANTASTIC TIME!!!!!!
He warmed up for the dressage with all the elegance and grace of a ballroom dancer, he was supple and magisterial and the warm up arena basked in the glow of his munificence (it was good, in other words 
). The test itself was a little less relaxed, but the judge obviously liked us, and he got the 6th best score in his section, and his first sub 30! We were off to a fantastic day. As his mega mummy (Claire Penfold) cooled him down and got him ready for the show jumping, I had a stroll around the xc, to further test trainer Caroline’s patience by successfully distracting the rest of her group on the course walk.
Now, it’s show jumping time! And holy cow was it good! We strutted into the arena like we owned the place (successfully ignoring the photographer!) Put our game face on, and tackled the Beast. It was going down! We jumped powerfully, we jumped precisely, and we kept our cool after jumping long into the first double and having a pole on the way out. Next up was what my son Harry has now dubbed the Pikachu jump, and we hit the stride bang on, keeping the rhythm to get home with just the one pole!.
But why were we really here??? For the cross country of course! For Dan’s chance to remind us all that Gods walk among us! To grace us with the thunder of his passing as he ate up the distance and took every jump as though it was there purely for his pleasure (is that a little ostentatious???)
But accolade aside, what else does this hero of mythological proportions deserve??? A rosette! Yayyyyy, Dantastic came 10th.
Bring on next weekend. Watch out Farley Hall, Dantastic is coming for you!