Alice Oppenheimer is a dressage rider and trainer. She and her mother breed, produce and compete horses under the banner of the Headmore Stud. Her successes include Regional and National titles and she represented Great Britain at the 2009 European young rider Championships. In her exclusive H&C blog, Alice provides an insight into running a busy training and livery yard, as well as some of the highs and lows of competing.
"With the Regionals now over, it was time to start preparing for the Nationals and trying to gain summer qualification. We took Headmore Boadicia (Bracken) to Wellington on 1st March for some much needed practice!
She warmed up fairly well for the novice, albeit trying too hard, and her over enthusiasm continued into the test, causing us to have a few wobbles as she was trying to offer too much, especially in the trot. These little ‘blips’ lowered our mark to just under 69% and 2nd, but I wasn’t disappointed with the test as Bracks was just trying too hard - a nice problem to have!
We were also doing the elementary and, as I had expected, she came out better for the second test and was a little less exuberant, meaning that our test flowed better as she wasn’t trying to trot with her knees round her nose (although I’ll want that in a few years!). I was very pleased with the test as it was only her third elementary and the hardest test she had done. We scored just over 70% and won. So all in all not a bad day.
We also had another bit of good news. We were awarded a wildcard in the novice open freestyle for the winter championships, so I will now sort my music out so hopefully we won’t have the same problem as we had at the regionals."
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