“Last weekend, we took Bracks (Headmore Boadicia) to The College EC, Keysoe for her final regional final at Advanced Medium. We had a very civilized time in the afternoon so it meant that we didn’t have to rush to get ourselves organised and up there in time.

We had had a bit of a scare with her in the week as she had had a bit of a sore back and she had also managed to slice her nose open! Luckily, Jenny Hadland, one of my sponsors, had been out to sort her back out and after a few stitches her nose was fine as well, so we were all good to go.

Mum got her ready in the morning as I had a few to ride before we went. She looked beautiful after her bath in the peach flavoured Clean Round shampoo, and we arrived with plenty of time despite getting a little caught in traffic on the way.

Out at a party

She warmed up fairly well, she was quite hot as we were out at a party but as I took her into the ring she felt super! Unfortunately, we were the last combination to go before the break, which held a prize giving, so there were a lot of people watching and  quite a buzz in the arena, which meant that any noises from outside were amplified. Thankfully, I had given her some Nupafeed before the test so she coped well, especially considering she hadn’t been in a situation like that before. We just had a few mistakes where she is still very green at the level and she was in a new situation for her, but all in all both Mum and I were very pleased with how she went and how she had coped with the arena, as she really did have a lot to cope with, but that is the luck of the draw and you have to cope with what you have on the day when you deal with horses, you can only control the controllables after all!

We were so pleased with how she had gone that we said that we didn’t mind what mark she got as we were thrilled! Luckily, it wasn’t dire at 64.9% and eleventh which we felt for a green test with loads of mistakes wasn’t bad at all! I think if we had done a clean test we would have qualified for the Nationals, not bad for a seven-year-old!

A trip on the weighbridge

We then had a visit from Dengie, one of my sponsors, on Tuesday and it was a very enjoyable day. Andrea, the rep for my area, brought her portable weigh bridge with her so we could weigh all of the horses, which was not only very helpful and in interesting but good fun as well. Wiz (Wurlizer) was the heaviest at 657kg, which wasn’t surprising as he is the biggest and the oldest and most established, and both Andrea and Lisa from Dengie were pleased with the condition of the horses, giving them a condition score of three, so overall everyone was very pleased with the day’s work!

I would also like to mention, as a breeder myself, what an amazing achievement for Woodlander Farouche and Michael Eilberg winning the five-year-old World Championship for young horses. Many congratulations to everyone involved and it certainly looks like British Dressage is on the way up... Hopefully it won’t be long before British bred horses make it onto the senior teams!”