So although we got to spend a luxury night in a fancy Chateau last weekend I was feeling a bit depressed come sunday morning after the dressage with Ned.To be fair I was still a bit pooped even after such a comfy night, it had taken quite a lot of preparation to get all the horses ready here to leave for 36 hours even thiugh we did have friends coming in to check and feed them,' Thank you Ian' (x2) and 'Thank you Bob and Leslie' even if you didn't make it, sorry for causing such a fiasco for you.
Rog was the catalyst for my depression, despite only going to the competition for the dressage I was particularly disappointed when he pulled off one of the most appalling tests of his life, I can only think of two as bad, one his first ever in a BYEH comp and then his first in France after a 6 month holiday from an abcess in his foot.
He was an absolute plonka throughout, he started squeeling when I rode up the bank to the arena, when the car hooted it was all to much and he had to buck and snort and spent the next five minutes cavorting round the arena showing off to the judges by producing every fancy move in his repertoire at every unsuitable opportunity which meant the entirity of the test.
(At least he's feeling well!)
Neddy compounded my misery by doing a rather babyish but very satisfactory test for which he was very ungenerously marked. He was a little tense and rushed his free walk but some movements were spot on, like his rein back  which he struggles with at the moment and his marks didn't reflect any difference between the good movements and the lack lustre ones. So after the dressage he was lagging behind in fifth in a second group of tightly bunched marks with all the first four horses having at least one showjump pole in hand. Over here most horses showjump well and the xc at this level is not influential as it is pretty straight forward, so I didn't fancy our chances knowing only the first four would achieve 'classement'.
However Neddy pulled it out of the bag jumping double clear. The xc threatened to knock us down a place as I mucked up with my stopwatch and had to guess Neddy's speed which isn't easy, especially in deep sand. 
( I got badly burnt at his first competition last year with 15 penalties for going too fast.)
Neddy is difficult to judge as he is very fast without feeling so with his big long strides, he is also fast over a fence and capable of taking fast direct lines. As it was we pulled in 12 seconds inside the time so there were no penalties to add and he hung on to his prize money and classement to finish third.
"Good work Neddy"