“After all of the preparation and build up for Keysoe premier league, we set off on Thursday 7 with Wiz (Wurlizer) and Del (Headmore Delegate) all packed for the three days. Luckily, thanks to my Clean Round Shampoo, Wiz was able to go as he had been a bit spotty in the week preceding Keysoe, but a bath with the clean round anti microbial shampoo had sorted that! I was very nervous as it was Del’s first proper PSG and Wiz’s first proper Grand Prix, but I was keen to find out exactly where we were with our training and tests.

Third in our first PSG

Del was on first on Friday in his PSG and he was quite excited when I arena walked him in the morning as it was his first outdoor show of the season. Thankfully I had plenty of my trusty Nupafeed with me so by the time we came to do our test he was settled and rideable. I just rode a safe test as it was his first proper PSG and I wanted him to gain confidence at the level and there were just a couple of green moments in the test, but overall we were pleased. We scored 70.35% and finished an eventual third, so not bad at all!

Wiz’ Grand Prix

Wiz then did the Grand Prix in the afternoon and Erik Theilgaard (my trainer) came to help me warm up. Wiz was a bit grumpy to start off with but Erik was amazing and he helped me get him firing and ready to go. I was very pleased with our test, there is still room for improvement and we had a mistake in the 2’s (times changes), but overall it was not a bad effort. We scored 65.32% and finished fourth, and the German judge had us to win with nearly 68% and an eight for my riding, so I was over the moon with that!

Back to earth with a bump

However, horses being horses, we came back to earth with a bump on the Saturday when Wiz and I did the Inter II! He wasn’t quite as good as in the Grand Prix but it wasn’t going too badly until we got into the canter work when Wiz got a bit stuck in the first pirouette and had a moment! However, we’ve decided that the Inter II test doesn’t suit Wiz as where the pirouettes are makes it difficult for him so we have decided to just compete at Grand Prix now, so it’s not all bad news!

Finally, on the Sunday, Del had his second PSG. I had decided to ask for a bit more as he had already done one test and Erik was there to help me warm up again. He was going well in the warm up and was very expressive and the test started off well, but something spooked Del halfway through his trot work and then again every time we went down the bottom end of the arena. It was a shame as we had many more eights than we had got on Friday, but we also had more sixes. We finished on 68.68% and fourth place, but we were only less than one percent behind the winner, so there were good points and not so good points, but we couldn’t really complain as, all in all, it was a very good weekend!”