I was so excited, it was Easter weekend (no time required off work) my birthday (so an excuse to spend money on myself) and I had heard just how much fun the 3 day was last year from loads of people!

Tess and Diane organised the Meon teams, our WhatsApp group pinging with chat about sleeping arrangements, night time trips to the loo, and most importantly what we were wearing for our trot ups photos on day 3!

Then disaster, the 3 Day was no more, cancelled, the chat turned to discussing the dribble of refunds slowly coming back to us, the bubble had truly burst… or had it?…Jo Y used some strong motivational words and the bubble slowly inflated. We lost two riders, gained one rider and one extra pony, and then before we knew it, Moreton One Day Event, on Easter Sunday, was game on!

Meon 70 team Charlotte R, Tiff, Gen and Alex E

Meon 80 team Corinne, Diane, Tess and Jo Y

80 individual Gen, 90 individual Helen V

Moreton was sunny, but windy, all was good until we walked the 80 xc, it was more challenging than usual, with the first 5 fences being the biggest/widest/scariest, pretty much on the whole course! It’s usually just log, log, log to start. Once again, Jo Y said bravely, it was all within our capabilities, and we believed her.

Dressage, on grass, with the xc going on in ear and eyeshot, is not to my Nixie’s liking in the slightest, added to that the wind.. that had just gone even more gusty!  I was next to go after Tess, I was half watching her lovely, soft test, while trying to calm my hyped mare, and then I gasped, Tess had gone wrong.. but there was no toot from the car, no correction, because she hadn’t actually gone wrong!

The penny only took about a minute to drop for me, then I yelled to Jo Y, who was warming up, what does the free walk look like? She yelled back, into the wind, “a zig zag”. As I rode up the centre line, I tried to remember what I had just seen Tess do, luckily for me, my brain got the memo and I nailed that bit, close call. Thanks Jo and Tess though for saving my bacon.

Next up, SJ, which I hadn’t walked due to time constraints, but as I made my way across the carpark toward the arenas, I heard the shout “loose horse” Nixie jumped forward as Basil (Helen’s horse) galloped straight past her across the carpark to the temporary stables, parking himself calmly in front of a stable with a puzzled looking chestnut inside, and even more puzzled owner inside! Basil was looking for his chestnut girlfriend Willow, Gen’s horse, but amusingly he got the wrong chestnut! He was safely led back to Helen, but an eye witnesses said that Basil had jumped over a car bonnet that had tried to block his escape enroute from lorry park to stable block, clearly showing his jumping ability there Helen!

My show jumping went really well, much better than I had feared, Nixie stormed round, in proper “jump off styley”, the commenter announced us, just as we went over the last fence,…and clear!

The xc also went just as well, Nix gave me an incredible ride, after a hesitation at the freshly painted gleaming white no. 3, she then went on to steam round with power and confidence. I sadly overcooked my time wasting manoeuvres, putting in huge extra loops at every chance I got and trotting the wooded sections (as we are always way too fast) to be annoyingly a couple of seconds too slow, but I loved every minute of it, and remembered at last why we do this to ourselves!

Diane, Gen and Tess had super rounds, extremely pleased with their ponies, and double clear too. Diane thought she had broken her xc watch because it didn’t go off, but much to everyone’s amusement she discovered she had set it for 6 hrs and 28 mins instead of 6m28s! Sky is definitely not that slow Diane!

However the big story of the day was our 70 team, all 4 ponies were doing their very first One Day Event! Although I didn’t get to see any of them ride, they all completed in fine style, learnt lots along the way, and made their owner/riders very proud indeed! 

Well done everyone, we all came home with a frilly! 

Go Meon!

90- Helen 10th

80- Gen 7th, Corinne 8th, Tess 9th

70- Alex 8th, Gen 10th

Meon 70 Team 4th

Meon 80 Team 4th