YR Team ride at Pilgrims Trail

Eskar and I qualified for the European Championships for under 21s in April when we completed my third CEIYJ2* 124km at Fontainebleau this year. Since then Es has had been on rest and then slowly bought back into work with the intention of just keeping him ticking over for the selection ride on Sunday and then hopefully for the Champs in September which are going to take place in Rio Frio, Portugal.

The management team wanted to see us compete in the 64km at Pilgrims Trail and also wanted us to ride altogether to practice riding as a team and see how our horses all went.

Es was on fine form with brilliant recovery rates all day. I was so pleased with how we was feeling, though my arms were taking the brunt of it!

We were told to ride at 15kmph but we went slightly over with a finishing speed of 16.92kmph, but the course did ride a little short.

As Es is 16 we decided to vet in straight away at the end so that he doesn't have chance to stiffen up too much so our final HR was 51 and we bagged ourselves a Grade 3!

I'm confident in our performance on Sunday and am looking forward to hearing the final decision for the Euros soon.