"With the Regionals looming ever closer, we took Bracks (Headmore Boadicia) to Sparsholt to compete in their festival of dressage last weekend.

Best turn out

On Friday 8, we had a medium and an advanced medium class, and they were the tests that are the regional tests so we thought it would be good practice for her! She was very pleased to be out at a show as she hadn’t competed since she had qualified for the summers, but this meant that she was a bit over the top in the trot and she just kept trying to trot bigger and bigger! Unfortunately, she isn’t strong enough to maintain such a massive trot and was struggling with her balance, but she was just so pleased to be out at a party again! The walk and the canter in the medium test was good, but there were quite a few places in the trot work where she lost her balance because she was trying too hard, something that the judge commented on! She still scored just under 68% and finished third, so it wasn’t all bad! In the advanced medium, there were some losses of balance in the trot work again, and there were also a few green mistakes in the canter work, particularly in the changes. This kept our score down at 67.3% and we finished fifth. However, we won the best turned out prize on Friday (which mum claims was all down to her!) so we have won a photo shoot!

Winter regionals qualification

We took her back to Sparsholt on Saturday 9 for the medium music. Percy the pigeon, who Bracks had nearly trodden on twice on Friday, was still flying around the indoor arena and making a bit of a nuisance of himself! We arrived in time to watch my mum’s best friend do her elementary music test on a horse which we had bred, and it was a lovely test which everyone was pleased with. They scored over 73% and won the restricted section, so mum’s best friend was thrilled! It was then my turn with Bracks in the medium music. She was less excited as she had been out the day before, which made her easier to ride, but there were still a few wobbles in the test. We scored over 71% and finished third, which qualified her for the winter regionals, so now both of her music qualifications are done for next year’s winters!  

A charity ride

I was then back at Sparsholt on Sunday as I had been asked on the Tuesday before to ride in the pro-am medium elite class as someone had dropped out. It is for charity and the format is that the amateur rider does the test, medium 75, on their own horse and then they get drawn one of the 10 professional riders. The ‘pros’ get 20 minutes to get to know the horse before we then had to ride the same test and, hopefully, improve the score! I got drawn the last horse to go, this was Vorame, owned and ridden by Bryony James. I watched most of the professionals before I was allowed to get on for 20 minutes. Max, as he was known, was a lovely horse and beautifully trained, if I pushed the correct buttons he did as he was asked, which made me look really good but actually he was easy to ride! Bryony had scored 62.57% as he had been spooky in the first round and was lying in joint seventh. I was pleased with the test I had out of Max, we just had one little mistake after the first travers, but the test flowed well and felt good to ride. We scored 70.68%, which was the third highest score from the pro riders and overall with our combined scores we finished fourth! This was an improvement of 8.11%, the joint best improvement of the pros, so I was thrilled! I really enjoyed the experience and it was all for a worthy cause... And I have already agreed to take part in it next year!

Following our manic weekend, we had Sherry Belton from Albion, one of my sponsors, come down on Monday 11 to meet the horses and look at my saddles! It was a very enjoyable afternoon and I can’t wait to get my new made to measure saddles!”