H&C

24
Feb
2010

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Five wins at the Regionals and a frozen pillow

"After a less than perfect performance at the Patchetts winter regional, Andrew and I left for the South West winter regional championships at Kingston Maurward, 18th – 21st February, with a renewed desire to do well… actually to qualify! We took with us Bracken (Headmore Boadicia), our rising six year old mare by Belissimo and Delboy (Headmore Delegate), our homebred rising seven year old by Dimaggio.

We arrived on Wednesday afternoon so I could arena walk Bracken in the morning before her novice open, but then had to wait until 4pm on Thursday afternoon for my first test. She was very buzzy in the warm up and I was hoping that she would settle for the test. Thankfully she did and we produced a mistake free test for 70.24% and, much to everyone’s surprise as she hadn’t done much competing, a win and qualification for the championships - a very good start.

Friday saw Del’s first test in the elementary open. The test was nothing short of phenomenal, he felt amazing and the test flowed beautifully. This was rewarded with a massive score of 74.05% and a very convincing win! It was also Bracken’s second test in the Novice freestyle. She was much more confident and offered more in this test but unfortunately I had some costly issues with my music, meaning that we missed out on a qualification. However, we still managed 5th with 71.05%, which will hopefully be enough for a wildcard.

I awoke to sub-zero temperatures on Saturday; it was so cold that my pillows had frozen to the window! Then our generator ran out of petrol so we had no heater! Thankfully, the sun came out and we warmed up, and a friend of my Mum’s managed to get her other half to bring us some more petrol so Andrew and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Del had both his music tests, starting with the elementary. Our test scored a massive 76.67% and another win, although it was very close with both 2nd and 3rd place scoring over 75%. We then had our medium freestyle, which I felt was better than the elementary had been, and this also scored very well, with 75.36%. We were quite early on in this class so had a long wait, and I knew that the last competitor in the class, Jacky Stolper and Der Schufro, would give us a run for our money. They did just that but scored slightly lower with 75.1%, so Del had another win.

I was feeling the pressure on Sunday as I had won five classes there last year, four of them on Del, and, with one class left for me, I was on four wins this year and three with Del! I think most of the pressure was from me though! Mercifully, my test was at 9:30 so I didn’t have a long wait, I don’t think I could have coped with it for much longer! This was the medium open and we had a few silly mistakes (all my fault) but still scored 71.62%. This was enough for the win, making it five for me and four for Del for the second year in a row! Unbelievable!"