I’m not quite sure where to start with my Express Eventing experience which was a pretty good weekend for Team Harris! I left reasonably early on the Saturday morning as I was stopping on the way at Millfield School to practise my dressage test. Danny Anholt, who is director of riding at Millfield (my old school), has been so helpful in my preparations. He and his staff designed and built an enormous show jumping and simulated cross country course the week before the competition, and even got a whole load of students to come and act as ‘rent a crowd’ to give me some atmosphere and a real opportunity to practise under pressure. And then they also put up, at about five minutes' notice, a new long arena complete with flowers and white boards for me to come and use on my way. Fantastic!
It was quite a long trek up to Stoneleigh, but Bobs (Law Choice) was soon settled in his stable and it was off for a riders’ meeting. E3, the company who was organising the whole thing, were so welcoming as were all the people from the Festival of the Horse. We were all taxied off to the Hilton, no less, for a welcome dinner and had a fantastic evening with lots of excellent food and a little bit of excellent alcohol too!
It was an early start as the course was open from 6.30 till 8am for us to walk, before some of the fences were taken out again so that the dressage phase could take place. I left Charlotte Pitt, who very kindly came and groomed for me for the day, in charge of Bobs and made my way down to the arena, cup of tea in hand! Most of the other competitors walked the course a few times and then brought their horses into the ring to work them for a familiarisation period. I decided to bypass this with Bobs for two reasons; firstly because I wanted the spookiness of the arena to lift him and sharpen him up a bit so I didn’t want him to become too used to it in there, and also because I really, really needed that hour and a half to learn what was a seriously complicated course!! 17 fences and 99 seconds sounds reasonably straightforward, but it was easily the most complex thing I have had to remember and that includes the Blenheim dressage test! The difficulty was that you were jumping a few of the fences more than once and in different directions and then turning different ways afterwards, so for me, with dyslexia especially, it was going to be tricky remembering the order and sequence of the course.
The dressage started and I had quite a good draw being seventh in, just after halfway. My dressage trainer, Brigid Grant, came to help me work in and of course I still had fellow blogger Anna Ross Davies’s words about sitting up and riding to the phrasing of the music ringing in my ears! It seemed like such a big occasion as there were a lot of people in the stands and also none other than Clare Balding judging the artistic quality of the tests, so the pressure was certainly on! I didn’t really get to watch any tests before me as I was busy working in, but the reception that Duarte Seabra received after his test was awesome so I knew that I had to pull something out of the bag! Riding into the arena Bobs suddenly felt pretty wild and I sent up a quick prayer that I hadn’t been too brave in not bringing him in earlier in the day. He settled really well though and I am so proud of the way he not only coped but really rose to the occasion.
I found riding to the music so much fun, but it did mean there were a lot of things to think about and I was a little bit ahead of the music most of the way through. I made a couple of mistakes and fluffed one of the tempi changes, and when it came to the walk I was a mile too early but I just waited until I heard the cue for the transition and then made up a random walk movement as I went along... Good old Bobs just ambled across the arena thinking it was all relatively normal! When I’d finished I knew it was ok, but I wasn’t expecting such a reception from the crowd and also such good marks. The scoring system was very complicated but I ended up with 28 out of 30 from Clare for artistic impression and finished the dressage lying in second to Duarte by 3 marks, with Alex Hua Tian hot on my heels just 0.5 penalties behind.
We were able to walk the course briefly again before the start of the cross country. I was majorly panicking because I thought I was going to forget it, but once again Jon Pitts was able to offer me some words of wisdom (I think they were something along the lines of "just get on with it!") and so I chilled out in the riders’ stand to watch the first few go. It was great that the cross country was in reverse order so that the better tests really felt the benefit and were able to see how the course and the times were riding. The time was quite a talking point. The speed was set at 425mpm and the optimum time was 99 seconds. There was a 10 second window, from 94 seconds to 104 seconds, in which you could finish without any time penalties, but either side of this 0.25 penalties were added per second. All fairly straightforward, except that we had to guess completely as we couldn’t wear any watches. It was a weird scenario as it was a faster speed than show jumping but slower than even a Novice cross country, but in the end it rode really well and five combinations including me and Bobs managed 
to come home completely penalty free. Bobs jumped so well, really taking on all the fences and staying dead straight on all his angles and lines. I thought he could go either way and be totally put off by the crowds, music and commentary but he stayed so focused and definitely looked after me. I am really glad I was so meticulous about walking the course as I very nearly lost my way towards the end, missing two important turns which meant I had to really burn down the final line. Nevertheless we were clear inside the time.
It was a fairly quick changeover before the show jumping and again I spent quite a long time walking the course and also doing maths to try and work out how the 'eraser' fence could affect my score. The course was set at about 1.25, with the final fence having two options. A decent oxer or a very large and gappy white upright facing into the crowd set at about 1.35m. This was the joker or eraser fence, which removed 4 penalties from your score if jumped clear, but if you knocked it down you added 4. So if you had a pole then you could remove it by jumping the joker clear and thus having a ‘clear’ round. A clear round including jumping the joker fence clear was the best scenario as it removed 4 penalties from your dressage and cross country score, which in my case was just my dressage score.
The course didn’t start off jumping that well with quite a few penalties spread evenly, and no one managing to clear the joker fence until Tamsyn Hutchins came in and jumped a super clear. Alex was still only 0.5 penalties behind me and Duarte less than a fence in front so it was seriously close. Alex jumped a beautiful round but hit the joker to end with 4 faults, taking the pressure off me slightly. I knew I had to jump clear to put the pressure on Duarte, but jumping the joker, although a risk for me, would force him to have to take it on too. I cantered into the ring pretty undecided, which may not have been the best thing to do, but overall I felt cooler and calmer than in my show jumping at Bramham. (Sounds ridiculous but this is something I am most pleased about!) Bobs jumped out of his skin yet again, I made a couple of errors in a related line and added one stride but he was so careful all the way and I decided that he deserved the chance to show everyone what he could do so I turned to the joker. I need not have worried at all as he pinged over it and finished clear (ie. -4!) and inside the time. I had now reduced my score to 18 so Duarte had to jump clear with the joker, and when he hit the third fence I knew I had won!!
It was an amazing feeling and I am so pleased for my mother and Jane Keir, Bobs’ owner, as they were ecstatic jumping up and down like complete loons!! Things happened pretty quickly then as Bobs and I were kitted out in all our prize giving gear, me in a sash that I kept tripping over and Bobs in a rug that he eyed up very carefully for chewing potential! We walked into the prize giving to some very dramatic music but I couldn’t keep a straight face and just kept laughing at how surreal the whole experience was! I knew the horse was capable of a great result but I never ever expected to win so it was such a shock! I seriously couldn’t believe it when I was presented with a £5000 enormous cheque, standing next to a CAR!!
I had a brief interview with Clare Balding, which I thought was going to be very scary as I’m always seeing Clare on the telly, but she is really lovely and puts you instantly at ease. Bobs really enjoyed the lap of honour and decided to spook at all the speakers, but he clearly loved the attention from the crowd and was a very happy boy. I think he thought we were all rather insane the way we kept hugging him and telling him how marvellous he was. The lap of honour in the new car was terrifying, much worse than the actual competition itself!! I could just see myself ploughing my way into the stands! After the prize giving there were some press interviews and possibly the most mortifying (and my first) photo shoot. I am not very photogenic and usually try to avoid cameras like the plague, but there was no getting out of it on this occasion.
So many people made the day possible, not least Jon Peace who came up with the whole concept of Express Eventing. His generous sponsorship is what enabled the whole thing to come off and I can’t thank him enough. The event was also generously supported by a number of other sponsors and the organisational team of E3 Events did such a tremendous job. Personally I have been so lucky to have been supported by an amazing team of people. Brigid was a huge help all day, just chatting things through and doing the important maths part, Jon was always on the end of the phone, my mother, uncle, and young cousin Faye (who gave me these lovely photos) were all there supporting me, as well as Jane and Susannah and Leah Downey who are great friends and also own another of my rides. It was a fantastic group of riders who all took part and most of all it was so much fun!
Bobs was a superstar all day, I feel very privileged to have such a generous and talented horse in my yard, and I am just so excited about him as there is much, much more still to come... onwards and upwards!