LEGACY FLIGHT

Legacy Flight - Stable Name ‘Elle’

I bought Elle as a 5 year old in order to bring on and event her. She came from Donal Barnwell, whom I had backed some horses for, which enabled me to finance her.


Elle is of a stro
ng character and I believe she has the ingredients to become a top Event horse.


Main Aim: To produce her into a top eventer and to breed a foal.







Summary of the Event season: - Legacy Flight

 

Stilemans Novice: double clear

Aldon Novice: 10th

Whitington Manor: 3rd

Purston Manor IN: 8th

Iping IN:6th

Wilton I : 13th

Completed Hartpury CIC*

Berkshire College N:2nd

 

Aim: After an unusual result at Cleobury Intermediate, I sought advice from my friend Toby Blake. In order to get some feed-back of our progress and future. Toby has helped me with Elle before and offered to ride her at a competition, in order to give me his opinion of our next steps.

An unfortunate fall at Dauntsey finished our season earlier than hoped. No real harm was done but I was bruised enough to stop me from competing … not how I wanted to finish the season but we are all healed and it’s now back to the drawing board to work out a plan!


News about Elle


Elle set off to Hartpury for a 3 day E
vent in August! Thanks to Hannah's amazing work, she looked absolutely stunning whenever she left the stable! I was so grateful to her efforts! I loved the whole experience and felt so lucky to have my friends there supporting me throughout ;-) I was thrilled with our 49.6 dressage! Elle set off XC full of herself, coming down the hill jumping a difficult AB combination well, I lost a little concentration and drifted off my line to the water.... this cost me dearly as I never made it to the B element! What a shame! But I was made up with our SJ round the day after and left Hartpury thinking...  I can't wait to go again!! :-)


At Wilton in August was Elle's first proper run. I felt, we could have achieved a better dressage score as she was warming up beautifully. Nevertheless, her marks were good. She almost had a pleasing SJ round until the last fence, where we lost our line and she ducked out! Disappointing, as we collected quite some time faults but we were determined to have a good XC round and succeeded! She was in great form and came home clear!


Elle went to Portman in July, doing a Intermediate Novice, she was a little more tense than usual in the dressage arena and changed leg in the counter canter and she generally felt a little behind the leg in the arena,,,  perhaps it was to do with the fact that she was in season but nevertheless, she made up for it in the other phases jumping a double clear, finishing 8th, needles to say she was in my good books again ;-)


Towards the end of May Elle was entered at Pontispool where she scored a good dressage mark of 29.1 unfortunately an early mistake in the SJ course resulted in
a stop, which we didn’t recover from in time. I describe Elle as a horse that can be a bit “hot or cold”. At times she can switch over very quickly, which makes riding more difficult, especially during a competition. In this instance I could not improve her quickly enough and we ended up knocking a few fences down. After that, I decided to withdraw her from the cross country. There is always another day.


She has since jumped a few rounds at Roland Fernyhough’s and we were pleased with her then, as she performed to her usual standard.


Earlier in month May Elle had a great run at Whitington. She felt in top form doing a lovely dressage test scoring 23.1! After clear round SJ we set off on what I considered, a fairly testing XC. She went clear ending up 3rd due to some time faults but I was thrilled. She is now heading to Pontispool to do her first intermediate.


In April Elle had a run at Goring Heath. After a disappointing dressage mark she jumped a lovely clear SJ and I set off on the testing XC course. An unfortunate spook and spin cost me an expensive 60 points but luckily, I landed feet first and was up in no time to finish the course.


A late entry at Portman enabled me to run her again 2 days later again at Portman. It was close but a good thing to run her straight after our blip.

She ran round her first IN then with only one fence down in the SJ and had a clear XC....  to me, the world looked much better again ;-)


March saw Elle have her first run at Stilemans, she competed in the BE Open Novice class. She was full of herself, and settled in the dressage warm-up just in time scoring a 32.5. The SJ and cross country went faultless but as it was her first event this season, I took it steady ending up with time faults. I was pleased with that start to our season, it still gives us plenty to work on but we got home safe and sound with another point to her name.

 

Friday 13th, I took her to the last series of Eventers SJ at West Wilts to jump a couple of bigger classes. She jumped a lovely double clear in the Novice class ending up
6th. But in the next class I left my spurs on... much to her dislike!! which resulted in a rather fast round, costing us some poles! I won't do that again in a hurry!

 

On the 18th we went to Burrows Court Farm for an affiliated Dressage competition. As she has now almost qualified for the Summer Regional Finals, I will keep going until we win another two classes! She was very well behaved scoring 69.2% in the Novice. Unfortunately, we came second in that class, so missed qualifying by less than 2%! In the Elementary 44 she was a little tired, having had a real good jumping session at Roland Fernyhough's the day before, she lacked a little spark and ended up 3rd with 65.6%.


We went out to compete at Aldon this Saturday and ended up 10th. She did a lovely dressage test scoring 29 and had an unlucky pole down in the show jumping ring. She tackled the last phase brilliantly and bravely, although the cross country asked several questions of accuracy. The hilly ground plus the slightly twisty course cost us some time faults.

I was really pleased with her effort and with this result, I feel we are yet another step closer to our goal! (run at a 1* this year).


February saw Elle compete at Burrows Court, Elle competed in the Novice class and gained 64.48% and won the class. In her second test Elementary 44 she got 65.6% and came first again.

Elle was out again on the 26th In Novice 37 she came 1st with 68.92% and in the Elementary 43 she was also 1st with 70.34%


January saw Elle jump a double clear over the 3' course at Hamstead Grange ending up in 3rd place.  On the 31st January at the Eventers Show Jumping competition at West Wilts Elle came 3rd in the Novice class.


In December we entered our first Affiliated Dressage competition at Hunters Equestrian Centre in Cirencester and won the Elementary Class.