Nationals disappointment and winter training begins..

At this years National Championships poor Bugsy was very unwell needing to be withdrawn from the PSG and Inter I . He had started to look lethargic and off his food the day after we arrived then by the evening he had a high temperature resulting in a midnight visit from the vet. There was no question of him being fit to compete so it was just a case of getting him well enough to travel home.
We were so disappointed as Bugsy had had a such successful season including a 75% PSG score at Patchetts, 3 top 10 placings at Hartbury CDI, and 10th in the Hickstead CDI PSG, it should have been a great show for him.
To save the day Lucky did his best Nationals test so far with 65% in the Inter I, unfortunately he decided to do a poo in the 3 tempis which is so unusual for him... horses eh!! but an otherwise clean test, with only 1% between 5th and 25th he was so nearly in the top 10.
After an extra long holiday to give him chance to recover Bugsy now has a busy winter training ahead, he will be working more on his piaffe/passage to gain strength and we need a few more one tempis ready for his first Inter II and Grand Prix later next year.
When Charlie is back from his rest he is to be sold. He's going to make a great schoolmaster for somebody, he's a good teacher as he has to be ridden correctly but has endless patience and tolerance to teach the rider the movements.
Lindsey will be getting back to some more riding with Lucky and Big is coming on well since having last summer off with an injury, he's come back much stronger and his changes are improving well.

Big training at home

Photo by JT Photography

Premier League wins for both

As the Premier League season moves into full swing, the Spanish sunshine seems a distant memory. However, the boys enjoyed a few weeks rest on return to the UK before showing us what they learnt on the Sunshine Tour.

Bugsy started out on great form at The College scoring an impressive 70.3%. Unfortunately we were beaten by just 2 marks into second place in the PSG.

Last week we drove up to Lincolnshire for Sheepgate Premier League. We decided as a late entry to take Lucky. Although he'd been feeling a little 'cranky' after his rest, a visit from Sherry our physio got him back on fine form with a win in the Inter I. This qualifies him for the Nationals this year and means he can put his feet up for a while!

Photo by Kevin Sparrow

Bugsy was feeling great, being placed 3rd just behind Lucky on day one, then he came out on the second day even better, scoring 69% and winning the PSG - securing his place at the Nationals.

It's great to have both horses qualified so early in the season. Now Bugs needs to focus on qualifying at Inter I and working his grand prix training at home -got 9 one tempis today! He'll be competing at Addington Premier League this weekend in both Inter I classes.

Bugsy's back!

Bugsy in the heat

The demons have vanished and Bugsy has returned to his normal self, he was super in the FEI PSG this week, completely submissive and relaxed. He finished 4th on 68% and Lucky was 8th after a mistake in the changes.Both kept up their form again in yesterday's Inter I with Bugsy 3rd and Lucky 8th. Bugsy was a bit tired as the hummidity was so high all day, I kept the warm up short but all the horses even Valegro were feeling the heat.

What a clever boy!

Today is a rest day then Bugsy has the Inter I Freestyle on Sunday, both of them have qualified but the rules are that I can only ride one horse. We will be doing some packing and organising the lorry ready for an early departure on Monday morning. Our first stop is in Valladolid again then onto Bellin-Beliet in France. This time we have scheduled an extra stop near Sees and plan to leave really early to get back home in the afternoon on Thursday. See you soon!

The highs.....

The weather has improved drastically and the sun is back. Both horses went well in the National PSG with Bugsy finishing 3rd with 69% and Lucky 4th with 67.8%. One judge gave Bugs 70% again so he’s really up there with the scores now, just a mistake in a pirouette was costly. He especially enjoyed bronching round the prize giving!

Lucky in PSG

They both kept up the good form in the FEI PSG with another 3rd place for Bugsy on 69% again and a 5th for Lucky on 67%. We are so pleased with them both, Lucky’s test was so on the edge but I managed to keep it together just and apparently was much talked about amongst the judges that night! Bugsy is shining through and looking like a serious horse now, he has such natural presence.

Bugsy warming up

And the lows.....

For some reason the organisers decide to move our FEI Inter I test to the other arena here, its about a 10 min hack down the track and in a lovely woodland setting. We had great ideas that it would be much less atmosphere and quieter for them so were quite confident of another good few days ahead.
Lucky was on the first day fairly near the end, he arrived in the warm up after his hack down there with his eyes on stalks. After a very difficult warm up I knew I was in for a tricky ride. We headed in and he spotted the white seats in the grandstand, I decided to let him really look and trotted past he with his head in the air. I began to think this was a bad idea when I then couldn't’t get him back on the bit! We made it through the test with lots of explosions finishing on 65%, feeling a bit disappointed but hopeful that Bugsy with his more sensible character would be an easier ride.
How wrong....... he arrived in the warm up on fire! Squealing and leaping around even after 30 mins canter. He spotted the horses hacking on the tracks and was very keen to join them. Carl was helping me , he commented ‘you’ll need him like that for Grand prix!’ Having still not managed to take the edge of him we headed in last to go, his back up round my ears and strutting his stuff like he owned the place. The trot work was not bad although very on the edge and as soon as I set off in canter he exploded in full bronch, somehow I steered him into the zig zag squealing his way through it. I didn’t dare ride more than a modest medium canter, then he did legs flying everywhere with bucking and farting in the 3 and 2 tempis and a couple of huge pirouettes. He left the arena thinking he was amazing, Carl was busy laughing when the judge got out of the box and said to him ‘such a lovely horse’, that wasn’t exactly what I was thinking! As you can imagine the score was bad, 62% with one judge giving him 58% clearly not impressed with his lack of submission.
He was sent to bed in disgrace and we had a serious chat about his feed and forage, as we couldnt bring all our hay with us it can be difficult to find a suitable substitute. He was immediatly put onto soaked hay and given a heavy workout the next day. By Tuesday it seemed like the old Bugsy was back so fingers crossed for todays PSG.

All a bit crazy!

On Saturday we should have been competing Lucky in the Inter I but the whole day was cancelled due to torrential rain overnight which flooded all the arenas. The whole class was moved to the Sunday and all we could do was walk the horses in hand.

Lucky was in at lunchtime on Sunday,he was very nervous in the warm up and even though he had been worked in the morning he was a nightmare in the test. He was very tense in all the trot work and blew up though the canter and finished on a generous score of 63%. Hoping that it was just a 'lucky moment' we had high hopes for Bugsy in the afternoon but after warming up incredibly well he was just as bad in the test! It started when a car drove behind the fence and sent us leaping across the arena then a bench collapsed, he squealed and galloped off in the tempis both times, all in all just a bit too fresh. Bugsy finished 9th on 65%. Valegro is on top form and unbeatable so the fight is for 2nd place which was on 66% so all he needed to do was a half decent test, highs and lows!

Today they just worked and tomorrow they are both entered in the National PSG so hopefully that will take the edge off them.

An amazing start.....

The first few days after arriving were spent getting organise and lightly working the boys. Lucky finds the warm up the most terrifying place on earth. With his highly tuned flight instinct he believes the noisy Spanish hooves are a stampede and just wants to get the hell of out there! It gets pretty hectic and the normal rules don't apply, loose dogs and galloping in the warm up is acceptable here, the weakess gives way!

A quiet moment in the warm up

Our tack room

After a good work out with Lucky on Monday we decided to enter him in the National PSG class as a warm up given the fact he's only done one test this year. He was fab, coming 2ND on 66%, a really smooth test with hardly any mistakes.
Bugsy was still suffering from the journey a so we arranged for a sports massage for both of them. A lady called Gillian was here with her friend so she gave them a thorough session each.
Wednesday was the trot up then Carl helped me work Bugsy for a while, mostly just trying to loosen him up.That evening they drew the times for the CDI PSG and we were relieved to find that Bugsy was not on until Friday giving him another crucial day to recover.

Lucky was not on until 6pm on the Thursday so it gave me chance to work them both in the morning. The weather was starting to turn and just as I got on to warm up it turned torrential.Lucky was in turbo mode but still managed a reasonable score of 65% despite being on the edge through allthe canter work, he finished joint 2nd after the first half.

Busgy's time was also late on Friday second last to go, I worked him in the morning again, he was starting to let go and relax more and the weather was gorgeous. By the time we came out to warm up at 5.40 he was feeling like a different horse, the swing was back and I felt like we were back on form, Carl helped me warm up and was such a great help, ‘looks amazing ‘ is exactly what I needed to hear before going in! Just as we took off the bandages it started to rain and really rain. We headed up the slope to the main arena just as the rain became torrential, fortunately coming from England with no indoor school it didn’t phase us one bit and he did a super test. With a huge cheer and Carl telling me I should ride in the rain all the time I guessed it looked good. The rain then stopped in time for the next horse, typical! We waited ages to find out my score, then finally they announced in 1st place Valegro, in 2nd place Walkman BC on 69%! I couldn’t believe it; I knew it was a good test but WOW!>

A cup!

We are all so pleased and really looking forward to the rest of the show. Lucky finished in 9th and is capable of a much better test. Saturday is the first half of the Inter I, Lucky is on at 4.30 and Bugsy is on Sunday at 4pm. Lets hope the rain stops as this mornings classes were cancelled, Sunshine Tour eh?!

We're here!

Our journey to sunny Spain started last Wednesday, we drove to a holding stables 10 mins from Dover, after unloading in the pouring rain we got a few hours sleep before leaving at 5am to get the ferry. Unfortunately we had to wait over an hour for the next ferry but we got on board and bribed the horses with their first taste of haylage in the hope they would behave on the crossing. We had been dreading taking Lucky on the ferry as he is quite claustrophobic and can panic if he isn’t allowed out. As it turned out he took no notice at all and our full range of calming potions weren’t needed.
We arrived in Calais at 7.30am (8.30 french time) and hit the road for what would be a 1000km day! About half way through the day we needed another fuel stop only to realise that there are miles between services, so when we hit the red we headed off the motorway in search of a fuel station know we wouldn’t make it to the next stop. The lady at the payage said the next one was only 9km but it was more like 19km and being re fuelled! We didn’t dare to try to find the next one decided to sit it out and get some lunch and water the horses. Eventually we got going again and vowed to fill up as soon as we got down to half a tank. This was to be our longest day and by 9pm Bugs was starting to get distressed, hind legs trembling and very restless. We agonised over whether to try to stop earlier ,knowing that it would upset the journey plan for the rest of the trip but also not wanting to arrive in Spain with a horse that was good for nothing. We chatted to the transport agency and she encouraged us to keep going and eventually we made it to our first stop over in Bordeaux at 11.30pm, 18 hrs later! He had settled a bit thankfully. We arrived at the yard in complete darkness with no one there and found an indoor school so at least we could walk them. I managed to lunge Bugsy a bit who looked terrible, so tucked up and tight. Eventually we got to bed at 2am knowing the alarm was going off at 6!
From Bordeaux we headed towards Biarritz and the Spanish border, not surprisingly the boys were a little reluctant to get on the lorry. They travelled much better though, Lucky was amazing the whole trip, he didn’t seem to move from the moment he got on. Bugs was snoozing more and getting used to life on the road. The fuel stops we coming up more regularly so we were all much more relaxed until during my stint driving the mountains the lorry started losing power. The more i changed down the slower it went! At one point I was having to accelerate to get down hill. There are some seriously long tunnels and all I could think was ' not in the tunnel please'!
Anyway we made it down the other side and after a severve revving at the payage it seemed ok.That night we stayed in a place called Valladolid, the yard was the number one breeder of thoroughbreds in Spain and they had a super lunbge arena so at least we could work them again.
We left early again and headed towards Seville, the lorry started playing up again but we kept going after chat with our mechanic who ruled out anything terminal.The weather was very testing with the hurricane that was hitting Spain at the time. It was even on the british news!Poor Lindsey was in at the deep end, after passing her HGV onlt the week before she had to cope with wind, rain as well as being on the wrong side of the road.
The scenery is stunning on the way through Spain and we made it to the showground by 5.30pm, with a few hours unpacking ahead.

Heading off on the Sunshine Tour

Tomorrow we leave for Dover and the beginning of a 4 day drive to Southern Spain. We are taking Bugsy and Lucky to compete in the Small Tour International competition,which starts on the 2nd March for 3 weeks.Its a gorgeous venue which the beautiful Spanish village of Vejer in the background.
The journey will be take us via Bordeaux and Biarritz and with a bit of luck we will gradually head away from the snow we've been struggling with for so long and towards the warmth of Spain!
During our time there we will be training with Carl as much as possible and competing in a CDI show each week.Last time we went to The Sunshine Tour was amazing, we improved so much through the regular training and competing,its such a great start to the season.
Our preparation hasn't exactly been ideal as the snow this week has us back in the lunge pen again trying to ride the PSG in 15m x 15m arena!
I have promised to keep the blog updated every few days so everyone can keep up with our progress, wish us luck!