Turnip has another name, (Mr. Potato Head) due to his rather lumpy head with rather a shortage of brain cells. or that's how it seemed to be the first year we had him. He has a rather elegant head now, it never grew with his body and it even look  like some of the cogs in his brain have begun to turn.
   He jumped his first clear at the Renarderie on thursday and he wasn't mad either. I expected him to have a paddy as the Renarderie is practically home turf to him. I expected all  the new jumps, lorries ,trailers, horses and commotion at his usual would cause panic onset. It did cause wide eyes and halting steps but he was a big, brave ,grown up fellow.
  Turnip has never been clumsy with poles, he rarely taps them, we just get some wrong and take them down with a bang. Indeed if he rattles the same fence at home twice in a row he starts to get stressed about it, so i normally lower it a hole or two for the third attempt to ensure he doesn't hit it again, otherwise we can quickly get an onset of panic.
 We seem to be getting a modicom of sensibility  in the ring of late that's allowing him to make better judgements and jump better too.

Here's his round; Turnip at the Renarderie

Neddy went too, he was sensible and tried hard. He was in the 1m05 class with stopwatch and joker fence. Our aim wasn't speed though we put in a couple of tighter turns and angled fences that I would  normally. Unfortunately the joker fence caught me; I went for a long one then changed my mind and put Ned right under it. Left to his own devices he would have managed very nicely thank you, so I lost him a clear.
" Sorry Neddy"
They heard me in the commentary box and thought it was very funny so we left the arena to lots of " sorry, sorry, sorry".