Well, to say it was eventful would be an understatement! 
Super excited and I barely slept, mostly because I was panicking about what to pack and making sure I had everything.
We were up, loaded and on the road for 6.30am to start our journey. Brian immediately fell in love with CGM Eventing’s horse Murphy and they travelled together impeccably. Didn’t hear a peep from either of them, but I never worry about Brian anyways as he is 100% when travelling.
All was going perfectly until we reached Gloucestershire Services and the lorry got a little warm so we pulled in to let the lorry cool down... to then realise that we were losing water.
We rang the recovery and they came after a few hours, to tell us that the lorry needs to go to a garage! As we were effectively on a highway we had no choice to keep the horses on board whilst we waited for our saviour Michaela to drive all the way down from Aston to pick us up to take us to our required destination.
We unloaded everything from the lorry and popped it onto Michaela’s lorry, both horses unloaded perfectly and hopped into the other lorry like it was nothing. 
We then set off again and We arrived at Aston at about 22.30 that evening, gave the boys a leg stretch, a lot of cuddles and some tea before putting them in the stables.
Saturday morning came and it was an early start as I was competing at 9.06. I thought against giving Brian a calmer as I assumed he would be tired after being on a lorry all that time.
Our dressage test was rather ummmm excitable to say the least, he was like a ticking time bomb and I daren't put my legs on him 🙈 our score reflected what we did but we didn’t get anything below a 5 and our highest was a 7. We ended on a score of 44.5! 
10.06 we were jumping so it was a very quick tack change and we were off again. Our jumping round was the 2nd fastest of the day, but unfortunately we had the last fence down - it was a complete rider error as I should’ve asked for a long one and before I knew it, we were too deep and knocked a pole.
Considering the Brian was in transport for around 15 hours I CAN NOT fault him, he has literally been the best behaved horse I’ve ever had to deal with and took everything in his stride, and I’m just ever so thankful that we managed to get up there and still compete. This weekend, being placed or even going clear was the last thing on my mind. The fact my horse got there safely, he was sound and he enjoyed himself was my main priority. Even with the drama of the lorry I have to say it was one of my favourite weekends ever!
The way the Cornwall Trec Group team all pulled together and helped us out was just amazing, I’ll forever be thankful for their kindness and just their team work. 
It was one of the best weekends ever and I can’t wait too represent them again at the National Championships in September as we recently qualified in the 80/85 showjumping as a team and also individually. 
That Sassy Rider ODE Dressage

Comments (0)

Please note, comments must be approved before they are published.