Manakau Sports

Up to Manakau Sports this morning, just north of Otaki. I wasn't doing flat classes, so had a bit of a sleep in and still ended up waiting about 4 hours from arriving there to actually doing a class! It was lovely weather though, so that was nice. I did some showhunter practise rounds on Neo just as a bit of a warmup and to see some filler:

He was very spooky in the first round, but seemed to settle a bit in his second go around. I figure if we can keep these tiny little improvements going then that is all good.

Later in the day they were just about to close the showhunter (they'd actually announced that the championship class was cancelled) - so I got over there just in time to go straight in. Judge very kindly let me get away with using my SJ gear too.

He did a lovely round, very calm and just so much more steady. I was stoked with him, and he picked up fourth place. The judge even commented that it was a nice round (not something Neo tends to hear in showhunters very often!).

Showjumping was a little boring - no fillers at all (not even one, or planks, or anything). But we did the circuit and came 6th in that putting some more points on the board.

Then went on and did the TableC. Sadly the course was a little open, not too many options for good tight corners - but we took every single opportunity that there was and Neo set a pretty scorching time (as he tends to! I think TableC is his absolute favourite type of competition).

Nobody pipped his time (we were first out), so we won that class and he easily covered all of his entry fees for the day which is always a nice bonus. By the end of the day he was still a bit tanky at times (look at him chucking his head in his lap of honour, grr!) but he really was continuing with the little improvements so I'm really happy with that.

Thanks to Swifty for coming along and taking pictures - it's been a little while since I've had show pics of my horses, so a nice novelty.