“This week has been busy but mostly for a different reason. We have been trying to do embryo transfers with three of the mares, Kings Gem (Gem), Chico Bella (Bella) and Wolfgang Penelope (Lacey).
Gem has had two embryo transfer foals before but this time we are doing them from home so we can keep them all in work and they don't miss out on too much of the competition season. It really is the most amazing process and means that we can breed from top quality mares without stopping them being performance horses.
It is taking a lot of organisation as they have to be scanned most days and obviously this has to be co-ordinated with the vet and worked around each mare’s daily training. I have to say Elodie (who has been organising it all) is beginning to look a little frazzled. Fingers crossed we will have some positive results to report soon.
We have also been show jumping a bit this week. There was some BS on at Pyecombe which is just down the road, so we went on both Friday and Saturday. It is really good for all of the horses to get out jumping as it gives them some “match practice” and it’s good for me to jump tracks which tend to be more up to height and technical than in eventing. I also really enjoy it and love beating the show jumpers!
On Sunday we had two novices at Borde Hill. It’s only 20 minutes down the road, so we were all thrilled at the prospect of going eventing and not leaving at 4am. I have to say that once we got there we were not so thrilled. The ground was hard and although some effort had been made it was not up to the standard we have seen at most of the other one day events we have been to this year.
On walking the course I was concerned by a couple of fences that were totally out of keeping with the rest of the course and in my opinion could encourage bad riding. I had a lot of other riders coming to ask me about the fence as they were also worried and wanted advice on how best to ride these fences. I felt that as one of the few professional riders there it was right to say something about my concerns, which I did, although it seemed to fall on deaf ears.
Anyway, I got on to my first ride Billy on Air (Pip) and got on with it. Despite the dressage being on the side of a hill, she was much better and did a nice test, followed by a nice clear in the show jumping. We set off on the cross country and she was going well and settled in to a nice rhythm. Just before the water, I brought her back to trot and as we stepped into the water, she disappeared from under me and I ended up on my back, soaked through and floating around like an upside down turtle in my blown up air jacket! She had fallen right down on to her knees and had also got a face full of stinky water. Poor Pip. Luckily we were both okay, but I was not happy. I was certain there must have been a hole or some lose ground in the water to have caused her to fall. Again my suggestions and constructive complaints were not really taken notice of and I decided to withdraw my other horse as it was obvious nothing was going to be done and I didn't want to risk another accident.
All in all it was a very unsatisfactory day at the office as I was left with one horse who has missed a run and another who now needs to go back to cross country schooling to realise that she can be brave and go in to water without falling on her head.
It turns out that six other people fell in the water after me (and four the previous day) but it took this many incidents for the people in charge to do anything about it and they eventually removed the fence from the competition. I have to say I am gobsmacked that in a sport that carries such a high risk, the powers that be are prepared to put people and horses at greater risk by ignoring comments and suggestions from riders especially professionals who do it for a living. A massive disappointment and surely something that should be addressed."
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 |  | .JPG "William Kennedy") |
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