“With the season now well and truly under way, we set off to Sheepgate on Monday 2 May with Wiz (Wurlizer) and Del (Headmore Delegate) for our second Premier League show of the year. We were slightly worried that we may get stuck in traffic as it was a bank holiday Monday, but, thankfully, we arrived in good time. Once we arrived, however, it seemed as if we had ventured up to the Arctic as it was so much colder than at home! We settled the horses in to their stables and then settled ourselves down. I had a nasty shock when I cleaned my teeth before bed as my toothbrush had a really funny taste, but once I had soaked it for 24 hours it tasted fine!

Del copes well

We awoke on Tuesday morning to a blowing gale and still really cold temperatures (I think freezing is a bit of an exaggeration!) and got the boys ready for arena free time which we don’t normally get in this country. I think Sheepgate is the only venue that lets us work in the arena rather than just walk, which is a nice change and much fairer on the horses! Del was on first in the PSG and he warmed up well. I was pleased with the test, he felt much more confident than at Keysoe but I was disappointed with the score of 67.28% to finish sixth in a big class. He then did his first Inter I and I was very pleased with it. He coped with all of the tricky bits like the full canter pirouettes and two time changes, but there were a couple of annoying little mistakes that kept our score down at 66.75%, but we still finished third which isn’t bad for his first Inter I!

It was then Wiz’s turn in the Grand Prix and I was aiming for 66% so I would be eligible to go internationally. He was very hot and buzzy in the warm up and a bit over the top; I think he was very excited to be out at a party! However, he settled quite well for the test, there was just a bit in the middle where we had three quite expensive mistakes, but nonetheless I was very pleased, it was much more confident than at Keysoe and the piaffe and passage had massively improved. We finished just second with a score of 66.38%, so I got my 66%! It also completed Wiz’s Grand Prix qualification for the Nationals, which was my aim for this year, so I was over the moon with that! That evening we went out for dinner with a group, including Kevin Sparrow and some top International riders, and had a fantastic time and a really good laugh. You could tell we were horsey however as after about 11 o’clock we started to flag, but it was well worth the trip out!

Wiz decides to finish early

The following morning the wind had died down and the sun had come out, it was a much more pleasant day! Unfortunately, the rest of the day didn’t follow that trend! Wiz was on first in the Grand Prix again, I was hoping that he would be a bit more relaxed today and we wouldn’t get the silly mistakes, and he was more relaxed, but he was a bit too relaxed so decided he didn’t really want to do the second piaffe, so that was the end of my test! We then got Del out and he had a sore heel where it had been so dry and windy so we decided it would be better to withdraw him as we didn’t want to make it any worse. As a result, we packed the lorry away and left for home and, as we were driving along the A16, we noticed a VOSA vehicle waiting at a roundabout... and they pulled us over for a routine check. Typical! Thankfully, everything was fine, we had both passports and they were more than impressed with our lorry, so it wasn’t all that bad in the end! We then had to stop for some fuel and lunch and Mum bought some Jaffa cakes, which are her favourite. However, when I gave her one she said that it tasted funny and, when I checked, they were out of date! Normally it wouldn’t bother us but after everything else that had happened, it was very annoying! Once we had got home and had a drink and relaxed we found the funny side of it all! You could definitely call it a show of two halves!”