Hello again, so, where shall I start? I guess from where I last left you, mum & I went back to Mr G at the end of April for a qualifier at Kings Equestrian, now theres some very windy & bendy & steep roads to get there, but we found it, eventually, after tom tom taking us through a far too skinny road, I mean way too skinny for meeting a delivery lorry & trying to reverse a trailer….eek!! It was also a wet & miserable day which wasn’t great either, but we got there & did our tests achieving 65.23% in both, again, very consistent, but unfortunately I didn’t gain enough points to qualify for the Championships at Hickstead….boo!! Also the Lee Pearson clinic I was looking forward too was postponed due to double booking & I couldn’t make the new date, which was yesterday, boo again!! We did however get Mr G home earlier than planned, we managed to get on the freight boat home, which was great, we got a cabin, breakfast & everything.
I put myself forward for the North West Team for the para Home International, which was last week, held at Vale View, the NW had two teams NW Eagles & NW Buzzards& the weekend consisted of trot up on Friday evening, first test on Saturday & second test on Sunday. After his long travels though poor Mr G was a bit stiff so we failed trot up on the Friday, we were able to present him again on the Saturday morning, so after an hour loosening him off on Friday evening, & an early morning on the Saturday, to loosen him off for an hour before he went in front of the panel, he trotted up fine, thank goodness. I didn’t feel the test went great on the Saturday, so wasn’t expecting a good score I was right, I only got 63.452% so was disappointed with that. It rained all night on Saturday, so poor Mr G didn’t lie down all night as he was in temporary stabling & his bed was wet, so I found he felt quite tired on Sunday, I tried lots of walking to loosen him off, we had our KBIS qualifier before the team competition, he didn’t feel forward enough & he still felt quite stiff, I don’t think the never ending rain helped either or the 8c temperature, isn’t it meant to be summer? We got another disappointing score of 62.50% for that test, so I tried a lot more lateral work warming up for my second team test & trying to ride him more positively, I know, I should be doing that for every test, but sometimes my nerves get the better of me and my confidence slips, especially warming up with the top riders who seem so focused, and then there’s little old me bobbing along, anyway the positive thinking improved my score & I got 64.76% which was great because the majority of the other riders scores went down, so I was happy with that. Our team came 5th overall which was a great effort & one of the riders on my team got the highest score of the weekend which was brill. We got the boat home on Monday afternoon, along with what seemed like a thousand bikers invading the island for TT, we had to sit on the deck of the ferry all the way home as it was packed, good job it was a lovely day or we may have frozen to death.
Before we went away I got an email to tell me I had a wild card to the Hickstead Championships, which was great news as this is part of the selection process for the paralympics, so the atmosphere will be great as they’re trying to prepare the horses & riders for the atmosphere that will be at Greenwich, I unfortunately won’t be going though, after last weekend I think it would be unfair on Mr G travelling him so far, as he isn’t feeling 100% & it will be a long journey from the Island, I’m happy that goal two was achieved, but sad having to miss it as I think it would be a great experience, I will be competing locally instead, I was going to have a go at combined training but chickened out, maybe I’ll enter next time after I’ve had a bit of practice. x
