A Very Happy Lorry Load Trucking Home!

It's event report time! Although yesterday’s eventing didn’t exactly start perfectly...

I was half way through plaiting up when my phone rang, which was annoying in itself as I was desperately trying to secure the end of the plait before he shook his head again. However, more annoyingly it was my dad ringing to say that he was on his way to the stables with the lorry but sadly it would be going no further as there was something wrong with the steering. A moment of devastation followed by a gallant rescue from my yard owners whose daughter, as fate would have it, was not only competing in the same section as me but was the rider to go directly before me so we had planned on leaving at the same time anyways.

I’m not a superstitious person at all but I am a huge believer in “what’s for you won’t go by you” so I was slightly nervous that the lorry not appearing this morning was a sign that today wasn’t to be our day. However, a mad rush to get organised while someone kindly retrieve my father and all of the necessities out of the lorry which was now at a garage 10 minutes away and we had two horses, two lots of tack, two passports (anything else I didn’t have could have been begged, borrowed or bought) and seven people on board heading to Warwick.

Before I go any further, I should let you know that previous outings to Warwick Hall with Woody have had two common denominators:
1. It always rains
2. We always have two poles down

Now that we’d overcome our first challenge of actually getting to the event, my aim was to stay dry (slightly out of my control) and to finish the SJ on less than 8 faults.

There’s no point in sugar coating it - our Dressage was crap and we finished on the highest dressage score we’ve ever received (39.3). However, I came out of the arena knowing that it was rubbish and super tense so I wasn’t surprised or disappointed with the score - it’s the days you come out thinking it was awesome and get a bad score when it really stings. Now, I could sit here all day and make excuses like he’s not used to travelling with a pal or that a bug flew in my eye as I was going around the outside of the arena (true story – I stopped behind the judges car and my dad tried to get it out but his big sausage fingers were useless), but the truth is it was just bad and I couldn’t seem to do anything to fix it while we were in the boards.

Never mind! We had a casual three-hour wait until SJ so off we went to walk the XC course- our giant team split up to let everyone concentrate – and we walked and walked and walked. It seemed really long, and it certainly wasn’t the easiest of 100 tracks with a couple of tougher questions than I’d seen here before but very good that they were mixing the course up from previous years.

We tacked up for showjumping; I said it yesterday and I’ll say it again now, well done to the SJ stewards because that was THEE BEST ran SJ warm-up I have ever seen. They were only letting a certain number of competitors in to warm up at any one time so the arena wasn’t crowded and you were clearly called when you were allowed to go in – it really took the “but I thought I was next?!’ stress out of the SJ.

I’ve been working on getting Woods to go at my pace in the SJ as when it gets a bit bigger I tend to let him take charge then I get nervous at oxers and chase him on which means we get far too fast and far too long. But not today. Oh no, determined to break the 8 fault Warwick curse I took hold and said “excuse me, kindly wait for me young man” …. Okay it was more like “Oi, I’m in charge pal!” but it was effective and got us in much closer to the jumps than usual which meant we LEFT ALL THE POLES UP! Hurrah, the curse was broken!

Dressage score long forgotten and buzzing from our ‘listen to me’ clear round we headed for XC. Woods is an old pro so doesn’t need much warming up so a quick gear change and a pop and we were ready to go.

He felt buzzier in the start box than usual – he’s normally Mr. chill but he had a little dance when we were being counted down from five and left the box like a rocket being launched. Over fence one and he propelled himself up the course which had plenty of galloping stretches which we LOVE as I don’t need to kick him on, he just flies because he has as much fun as me out there. He flew the course and negotiated the tricky combinations beautifully. The water has a jump in for the 100 which we very much slithered over like some sort of water serpent but redeemed ourselves by popping out over the step then one stride to the skinny beautifully. My life flashed before my eyes as we committed to taking a stride out to the beefiest fence on the course and he jumped Harry the (huge) hedgehog effortlessly.

We cruised home just two seconds over the too fast time so were safe for a foot perfect double clear and I was thrilled. It’s just such a pleasure to ride him cross country as he’s as enthusiastic as me and is constantly looking for the next set of flags. Despite our personal worst dressage, we still came home with a 10th place frilly which is the cherry on top of a lovely day out. Our yardies also had a fabulous day with Alice coming home with a double clear and sixth place in her first-ever BE100 so we had a very happy lorry load trucking home.

Finally home and Woods happily munching in the field, I settled in with a glass of wine and some sweet potato fries while thinking just how lucky I am to have my little partner in crime who loves eventing just as much as I do – horse of a lifetime. 

Sarah & SuperCob

Follow our journey here: Apt Eventing