Horses – who would have them?!
So I write this blog with a mixture of emotions having had a pretty tough weekend at the Grassroots Eventing Championship at Keysoe – a three-day show that I have spent weeks preparing for!
May was all about getting us ready for the Keysoe event. We headed over to the all weather gallops at Twyford Mill Equestrian and had a great time – it’s a big circular track so you can just keep going as long as you want to, it was a good chance to use my new Optimum Time eventing stop watch and try some interval training, Mikey and his buddy Stu had a great time.
We also headed for some arena eventing at Dallas Burston Polo Club with Lands End Eventing, Lloyd who puts on the events does such a great job and really works hard to keep all of us competitors happy, the course was great, long and flowing and a real chance to practise jumping some XC fences but in the comfort of an arena – we didn’t manage a placing in the individual class but we secured a second place in the pairs – I have been having a lot of pain in my lower back this month, so was over the moon with our round, however the severe back pain cut short any celebrations as I hobbled to dismount Mikey!
Mikey and his buddy Stu learning the course at arena eventing
On to the Grasssroots Eventing Championship, as you know I had been selected to blog in the run up to and throughout the event, our preparations had been going really well and the sun was shining as we set off for Keysoe. We enjoyed a few fruit ciders on arrival, settled Mikey in stable and headed to bed. Knowing what to feed Mikey was of course made easier by taking our dinner staple of Honeychop Lite and Healthy to accompany his balancer and oats – the horse next door to him must of thought the Honeychop looked tasty too as I caught him ruffling through the bag at one point. Day 1 was dressage and we got off to a GREAT start, scoring just 25 penalty points! I couldn’t believe it, 25, our best score to date, there were over 180 horses competing that weekend and our score was only beaten by 1 other horse, and there were just a handful of scores in the 20’s – who would have thought it, we are dressage divas!
Horse and Hound live streamed our dressage test from their Facebook page so it was just as well it as a good test! Check us out being dressage divas here. Horse and Hound also interviewed us at the end of the first day you see my interview here.
Sunday was XC day, and the XC course was great – Mikey had other ideas though, and we were sadly eliminated, he felt like he got really over whelmed heading in to the different fields out on course – I had hoped the work I have been doing in the lead up to the event would of got us through but it clearly wasn’t enough, so we are back to the drawing board to try and work on his confidence! I don’t know about you but when you work so hard for something and it doesn’t quite go your way it’s a pretty bitter pill to swallow, but horses aren’t machines and so we dust ourselves down and try again! We had a nice weekend despite the disappointment, the girls from Horse and Hound were great and worked hard to keep everyone happy, the sun shone pretty much the whole time, we enjoyed a BBQ cooked by me, met up with some friends and caught a few rays!
June will be a pretty quite month for us, not least because of my back pain, I have been seeing a chiro, physio and the doctors and don’t seem to be getting very far in getting fixed, when you cant bend down to get you socks on its probably time to take a few days off from riding, I also have a few gigs, a wedding and some fence judging in the diary for this month so I am sure Mikey wont mind a few quite weekends!
Until next month
Laura and Mikey x
