The tour of the country is going quite well at the moment. We travelled with MK and Boris to Gloucestershire for training and then straight to Myerscough for the first Premier League show of the year. Training went well although a different way of riding the zig zag from the Grand Prix has been suggested, which is a traumatic thought as it took me five years to get the counting right in the first place. But having observed the 'new look' one on video and received higher marks for it in the test I rode at the weekend, change it I must.
I drove from Gloucestershire to Myerscough, which took about six hours as the traffic was not on our side. It's a lovely show, held at a college with fantastic facilities. It's a long way from my home but well worth the drive and anyway it's good for the horses to become accustomed to travelling further afield. The arena is decorated like an international show and the show organisers took a lot of trouble to make it look nice - someone must have been up all night with a staple gun!
It's a very 'horse friendly' venue though with arena walks at 6.15am for the hardy, so there was plenty of opportunity to let a spooky horse look if you could get yourself out of bed early enough! Needless to say Boris and I were on tour on the first morning with him peering anxiously at the judges’ tables. It worked though, as although he was still nervous when he went in on his own he didn't spook at all and was placed in all his classes. He just needs to calm down a notch more to achieve consistent, mistake free tests, but bearing in mind that a year ago he was bloomin terrified of going into any arena at all I'm delighted with him and it's just more mileage that he needs now...
I was very kindly assisted on the Saturday night of the show by the Hayler family who took a short break from winning virtually every class they entered to help me in swapping Boris over for MK, as my times were close together and my poor Mum managed to crack a rib in the lorry! The Haylers really do seem set for world domination - they're breeding their own mega star horses over in Essex and Bobby, who is a Junior rider, beat a class of seniors to win the Advanced Medium and then rode a great test on a horse she'd never competed before to come 2nd in the Junior test. Then her dad Paul won, amongst others, the Young Horse classes and the Prix St Georges Kur and was rarely seen without a sash!
My mental preparation for my classes was assisted by my 'team' (Mum) who helped get me 'in the zone' by reminding me that I'd just been featured in the British Dressage magazine sharing my thoughts with the membership on how to ride freestyle to its best effect. "Yes, you'd better pull your finger out ," said Roland (Tong) helpfully over the phone just to make sure I had that winning feeling. Anyway MK gave it his all, the hero that he is, the floor plan worked and we won the Grand Prix Kur with 72%. He is such a star, he didn't even try to buck me off with his winner’s rug on although he did have a good munch on his sash. Champagne flowed all round and in the Grand Prix the next day he did his best test to date and scored 68.5% to come 2nd, a whisker behind the gorgeous Mr President, so we have also qualified for the Nationals at our first attempt. We earned some 9's in this class for the passage and pirouettes and the exciting thing is that there is a lot more to come as there were still a few mistakes. I'm so proud of MK, he couldn't have tried harder.
Immediately following the show I had a call to say that we had been selected for the Addington CDI at Easter so I've had to do a hasty reshuffle of my schedule. It's only down the road so a nice way for us to put a hoof in the door of an International Grand Prix. I've also had some training with Conrad Schumacher who very kindly came to visit me at Bury Farm, had a visit from an amazing new gait analysis company and Merrie and Boris are attending another show at the weekend. I have some courses to attend regarding anti-doping, both horse and human, and (er) speed awareness, plus 20 clients to train for the Winter Champs'. So it’s all go and I need a nine day week! I'll keep you posted...