ASTOUNDING!

Mary Lou has posted on her blog a picture of Tetley looking WONDERFUL. I am thrilled. http://web.mac.com/clsmfmly to see it.

This is in addition to an earlier posting about Zip so don't miss it if you want his news.

But the title is for Jazz!!!!

Jazz completed his first ever one day event with a score of 64 penalties. I'll say that again. He COMPLETED it. He wasn't eliminated. I am astonished, astounded, gobsmacked and more.

Let's forget the dressage score of 52 (48%) It was totally undeserved The judge put three people in at 34, 35 and 39 and the whole of the rest of the 35/40 in the class between 49 and 53. Everyone was asking what planet she came from and saying that they had never scored so low in their lives. He did a super test, obedient and balanced and, for a five year old, fluent. He was no trouble to keep in the arena and he stayed easily in a lovely outline. He did all his transitions pretty much where they were supposed to be and only got one wrong, the right canter lead, which I corrected easily. I had expected a score of about 65%, but there you go!

The showjumping he was sticky but he jumped them all. He got 12 faults for three knock-downs, and all of those were because he stopped and then jumped anyway. He was a good boy, because it was raining by this time.

By an hour later it was raining quite hard but I decided to go cross country anyway and stop if he felt unsure of the ground. Boy am I glad I did. He pootled happily around the course. Clear. With a few sticky jumps, but heck, he jumped them. All of them. At the first time of asking.

OK the showjumping and cross country were tiny. OK I had to drag him back on line a couple of times and insist he tried. But this result is progress that was unimaginable even a couple of weeks ago. I have the biggest grin on my face that you can imagine. I'm off for a bath now and then my share of a bottle of fizzy stuff.

C