‘I had the most brilliant time’

catherine.austen@futurenet.com

@cfausten123

THERE’S nothing like “missing” at the first fence of the day – a pretty good hedge – on your first day’s hunting for years, on a very smart event horse, with the entire Beaufort Saturday field looking on.

Rupert Sturgis set off at a gallop with me just behind and to the forefront of my mind were his wife’s – fellow Beaufort field master and eventer Beanie – last words to me: “Don’t you dare take a pull,” so I didn’t. But whereas a few months ago, when I saw a distance to a jump on Moonlight Charmer, I might have needed to press a bit to get there and there would have been a touch of a delay to his reaction, this time his response was so fast that I actually “got there” too soon. Whoops!

However, he felt very quick and clever;