1st December, Saturday

The Opening Meet
Chloe

Well, it was delayed by a month because of foot and mouth, and today we are at Knepp Castle as always for the Opening Meet.

I have decided after our fall last week not to go for some of the bigger hedges. I know today will be fast and furious galloping over a line of fences, so I just want to enjoy the day and have the horse come home uninjured.

I couldn't get over how flooded everywhere was. All the small streams had burst their banks and some of the water the horses had to cross was really deep. Some of the ponies were up to their tummies at one place. We had loads of water to wade through which was a bit daunting at times, especially later in the day when we had a bridge to cross and you could only just make out where it was as the stream was so full of water it was higher than the bridge and running over it.

Anyway, she jumped great, did all the timber fences no problem, and we still managed to jump a couple of the smaller hedges.

We went to the pub for second horses, and the field had really whittled down by now. Chloe had run really fast, and I lost count of how many fences we had jumped. It still seemed a bit early to go home, so did till 3pm although it was a bit slower in the afternoon.

At least the weather was dry, with some sunny spells, so overall a nice meet, and it was nice that so many people were at the meet as I had wondered how many would turn up with it being a month late.