Charlie's season got underway on Sunday 13th March At Oasby. The event was heavily over subscribed and over 240 were balloted out, including some with ballot stickers. Charlie was among the lucky ones and Tara's entry was accepted although Rambler was balloted out. The day was always going to get off to a good start as Charlie's dressage was not until 1:30pm meaning that we did not have to leave until 9am and still get there in plenty of time. Last year, Charlie came here as her first ever BE event and was disappointed to be eliminated after a fall in the show jumping that resulted in her exceeding the maximum time. So this year we are hopeful of at least a finish! Marianne had set Charlie a target of a rider score in the dressage of 7.

The ground was very dry unlike last year when lorries had to be pull both on and off the field. Despite the fact that class N was the last of the weekend the going was still good.

At the end of the dressage, Charlie was pleased with the test that Tara had done although she had hoped for a score higher than the 38.5 that the judge awarded. The show jumping started 20 mins late after an earlier delay in the novice class. Being the end of the weekend, the show jumping Judge rushed through the class and at times the warm up area was chaos. A silver and yellow fence, was the boggy of the day for many competitors, Charlie included and Tara added four penalties to go forward to the cross country on a score of 42.5.

Cross country has always been Tara's first love and a seasons hunting with the Zetland had kept her fit. Remembering last seasons run of penalties for going too quick and the flat nature of the course at Oasby, Charlie wisely decided to take things easy and she slowed Tara all round the course.  Alas she judged it slightly wrong and ended up 7 seconds too slow, collecting a further 2.8 penalties. A final score of 45.3, while disapointing is by no means a disaster. 45.3 was good enough for seventeenth place, leaving plenty of room for improvement.