Brigstock, Sunday 20 May 07
Another venture into Northants for the Spotless Vision eventing team, but this time the sun was shining and the location, Fermyn Woods Hall, was almost on the doorstep. Oscar was going it alone this week, as Cloudy Bay Boy had been balloted out due to the high number of entries. (Cloudy Bay fans can see pics below of the gorgeous grey in action at this weekends Grimsthorpe Castle SJ competition).

Oscar had something to prove after his below par dressage test the previous week and again, he seemed to be in a naughty frame of mind, but it did look like a better performance. In fact it looked very good apart from a couple of obvious errors: a dodgy transition and a shaky halt. Richard was sure that it was disaster, but the judge was a little less critical and awarded the pair a much improved 31.5. She praised the pair for ''especially fluent and correct work', we know that Oscar can do better, but today's performance was good enough to put the pair into 3rd place.

As ever the show jumping arena awaited and the pair were fairly relaxed as they warmed up over the practice fence. No problems for the team and they cleared the 12 jumps with ease; a clear round was achieved.

The 18 fences of the XC course now awaited and the pair were keen to tackle this testing course. The course was 1920m in length and an optimum time of 4 minutes 16 seconds had been set, with penalties incurred after 8 minutes 32 seconds. 1st up was the Flower Bed, quickly followed by the Table, no problems at either and the pair were soon into their stride. The 3rd, 'Seat' was flown and this was followed up by the combination fence 'Log'; the pair took the shorter direct route, leaving no room for errors and there weren't any. Onwards through the woods and into the water at 6, again no problems and Oscar leapt into the water without a seconds thought. The 7th 'Fan' was dispatched with ease and next were the Garden Trellis and Step Down, not so easy, but again no problems for this accomplished pair. The remaining half of the course was tackled with skill and speed meaning that the pair completed with a clear round of 3 minutes 59 seconds.

It was now down to how the other competitors had faired, as to whether Richard and Oscar would finish in 1st, 2nd or 3rd place... they were pipped into 2nd by only .5, still an excellent result and they will do even better, tune in again soon to keep up to date with the team's exploits!