I have just sat and read through my last blog and I have to say that since I last wrote I have experienced some great high's but also one of my worst low's. Things were looking fabulous the last time we caught up with Dayton on good form ahead of Badminton and the young ones seemed to be gaining form just at the right time as planned. I had a bunch of great shows on the calendar and it was full steam ahead....
Disaster struck on the morning of the BE at Northallerton. After a successful day at Port Royal with Gea winning both her tests, we returned home to prepare three for the event the following day. Everything was normal until the morning of the event when I reached the yard to find one of the horses seemingly with colic. A quick call to the vet and I presumed the day would continue as planned but when I found one of the other horses off colour in the field my worst nightmare began... as I explained to the vet when she arrived, something suspicious was going on and we both knew it wasn't going to be a quick job. After and hour making the poorly horses comfortable and the vet doing tests while at the same time watching them deteriorate rapidly, we reached the conclusion that they had the dreaded Atypical Myopathy. We didn't have time to think about getting upset we knew we had to get them to the nearest Equine Hospital as fast as possible. The rest of the day and pretty much the following week is still a blur; within hours the first horse had been cruelly taken from us, but we feel exceptionally lucky that the second horse survived. We are still in the early stages of his rehab 6 weeks on from that dreadful day and at this stage we are unsure how the disease will have affected him for the future as it is such an unknown in the veterinary world - not many horses are lucky enough to survive. When we collected him from the vets after his three week stay the vet that discharged him said he was the first she had seen in her career survive. The statistics are scary but I would advise everyone to read up on the disease and be as prepared as possible. It happened so fast and turned our world upside down in 12 hours. Had I known what I know now I feel I could have done more in the beginning and I will always regret only bringing one horse home, the experience will haunt me forever.
Getting positive again was really hard, all the horses that live with me are like my family and I became really paranoid about everything that was remotely 'out of character' but I knew that life had to go on. We had training planned and Badminton was only a week away. Even with my mind off the job Dayton put a smile on my face in our last training session at Vale View. Our last outing at Manor Grange for BD went as planned with him gaining qualifying scores and wins in his Elementary tests. Gea and Charlie Harper also put in great performances to win and finish second in their tests. Everyone finished the day with a +70% score and they put a smile back on my face. So that was it we were off.....
Badminton was a pleasure, we finished 22nd. I felt I rode the dressage badly, I needed to be braver. D was a little hot in the warm up so I opted for safe and looking back I could kick myself,. A championship is the time to ride for your life, not play it safe! He did give me a fabulous showjump and cross country ride which really pulled us up the final result. If i'm lucky enough to get another chance I'm hoping it will be third time lucky.
Joanne Pullan's Grafiba made his BYEH debut at Badminton. Jasmine Watson took the reins for me only a couple of days before as my times for the Cup and the BYEH classes clashed. She did a brilliant job to finish 3rd. Graffi is a huge horse standing at 17hh at only 4y/o so as you can imagine being weak and gangling as well as a giant, it doesn't always make him the easiest but he tried his heart out and I could not have been prouder of them.
With my BE Novice debut at Richmond cancelled the focus was on Graffi for Chatsworth. After missing his ticket by one place I was determined to give it my all. As he was my only ride at Chatsworth it meant I could focus 100% in him and it paid off as we won! He gave me a super ride and really showed himself off, he is for sale as he is a little big for me to event so whether we make Burghley together we will have to wait and see. With that out of the way there was only one place to head to... the airport. After the events of the month I have to admit to not being sad at leaving everyone behind and heading for some sunshine with the family. The horses had all been amazing at their respective events and they were ready for a quieter couple of weeks as well.
Feeling refreshed and with my mind back on the future I was straight back to a competition at Bishop Burton with Inola Smith's Upsalls Lorna. The dressage was rather interesting which really disappointed me as she jumped a fabulous double clear. Nolly put it down to me not having seen her for a month and she had been enjoying lots of jumping competitions. She has now had to knuckle back down to her training in the white boards ahead of her next run at Skipton. The following day saw Fleur T improve on her last outing to finish 6th in her Section at Shelford with a 25 dressage. Charlie Harper made his BE debut also finishing 6th in his section. The following day we waved off the super consistent cool dude Kelly's Star to his new home; he has been a real pleasure to produce and compete and I hope to see him out with his new owner very soon.
I have a few new rides for the next couple of months to get excited about including Bramham. I'm hoping that everything is now back on track and even minus one of my all time favourites we can still enjoy the rest of the season and have a bit of success with the talented babies I have in the stables.
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