It's fair to say that as my event season draws to a close
that it has been one I certainly will not forget! However the star moment will
forever be trekking overseas to compete in Millstreet International Horse
Trials, to contest the CIC* as a part of the GB Youth development programme
last month.
With my competition due to start on the Thursday, we aimed
to arrive late Tuesday night, which would allow Kidogo a day to settle in and
loosen up after the 15 hour trip across! With alarm set for 2am on the Monday,
we loaded up and set off for the 5-hour journey to western Scotland, where we
caught a 2 hour ferry to Northern Ireland. When parked on the outside deck we
realised that the Kidogo (K) and a fellow young riders horse were in fact going
to have an open view of the sea whilst travelling, which didn’t seem to bother
them as we traveled smoothly over the Irish seas. On landing in Ireland the
horses were inspected by officials, before we began the 7-hour journey down to
the bottom of Ireland, stopping every few hours to water the horses and top up
haynets. When we finally arrived at Millstreet, we unloaded the horses, and had
a look around the enormous facilities containing 6 huge outdoor arenas!
On Wednesday I walked the cross country course with one of
the six U18 coaches who had traveled out to help, and was very impressed by the
turn out of the course: running alongside fountains and the second water jump was
even boarded by an actual mill and waterfall! I also took the opportunity to
give Kidogo a school in the dressage warm up, as well as watch a few of the
tests that were running in the afternoon, there I realised that I was going to
have 3 dressage judges the following day! After a meeting with the rest of the
youth squad and coaches to discuss the course, and also the plan for the dressage,
I washed and plaited Kidogo for the first day of competition.
With dressage and show jumping on surfaces the stress of
studding was removed, so after finishing quarter markers and putting on my
tails, I set of to begin my warm up 35 minutes before my test. He warmed up
really well and after taking off his brushing boots we headed down the centre
line, where we did one of our best tests to date. On return to the stables we
were gutted to see that my mark was far from what we were hoping. Even though
we did very accurate movements, we were criticized against the flashy horses
for not having the basic paces. Having to put the disappointment behind us, I
soon set off to watch the first few show jump to confirm my thoughts on the
lines I would take before I hopped on board to warm up. I warmed up doing a
figure of 8 over a tall cross pole to loosen K through his body, then followed
this by opening up his jump over some low and wide oxers, and taller uprights.
Ready to go in I set off up the shoot into the main ring; I trotted in before
pulling up and saluting in front of the judges. We set off confidently and
jumping a solid round, however just had one hiccup when we landed disunited and
I cut my corner to fence 3 meaning he never saw it and we lost our balance,
picking up some annoying penalties, but not touching another fence. After
untacking K and carroting him, I set off to walk the xc course again with GPS
to mark out my minute markers, for the xc the following morning.
The Saturday morning saw me going for a third course walk,
before tacking up and heading over on the 10-minute hike to the xc start.
Having not show jumped that day I warmed up over some show jumps before angling
some xc jumps, and heading over to the start itself. K gave me one of the best
rounds yet, and the commentators absolutely loved him! Having not known much
about his breeding, it turned out that his sire lived only a mile away and one
of the commentators actually had a foal with the same father as K!
K was a complete saint all week and really deserved his union jack on his
numnahs! We gave him a day relaxing and grazing on his Equiblox Original forage
blocks on Saturday whilst I watched the 3* competition, before setting off back
home that night for the second 15 hour journey! I can’t thank my trainers
enough for pushing me throughout the season to get to this level, and Fulmart
Feeds who are such a big part of my team, and offer so much support.
Ellen
