Following our successful outing to Dorset, our attention turned to the CEIO 2* competition at the Masters, held at Euston Park the day after the European Championships. We were initially second reserve for the British squad but moved up to a team place a few days before the competition.
Chiara was pretty cardiovascular fit anyway and we just needed to do a bit more cantering to finesse the training. The beach, the tracks and lanes around Cornwall have been packed with holidaymakers for the last few weeks making training around here a real chore and fraught with hazards. To avoid the holidaymakers, we boxed up and drove out to Bodmin Moor whilst the holidaymakers were on the beach. This was amazing; miles and miles of empty space, perfect going, hills to train up, boulders to pick our way through and ground to canter and canter on: a really good session was had.
To avoid the disaster that was King’s Forest back in May, I had Chiara on Regumate hoping that this would be one less distraction for her. Everything was checked and double checked and we made the decision to leave very, very early on the day before the competition arriving around lunchtime. Chiara travelled well and even ate a few snatches of hay and on arrival tucked into her lunch happily. She was back to her old self. She looked beautiful for the pre-ride vetting and happily towed poor Graham up and down the trotting lanes, but we were good to go the next morning.
It was quite a late start at 7am for our competition with over 90 starters. I had definite plans for this race and initially I had planned to wait in the hold area until the main pack had left but, because she was relatively calm I duly went and warmed up with the rest and started in the first reasonably-sized space I saw.
The first few miles were calm and sensible in our own space going steadily around 17 kph but then we began to catch up with some other horses and some horses came speeding past from behind so calmness became a distant memory for that loop although I managed to keep the speed down. Chiara was so excited in the vetgate and it took us 9 minutes to present to the vet but everything was perfect and the heart rate was dropping all the time. Chi ate and drank in the vetgate, although largely on the move, and we were soon ready to go out on the next loop, the first 40km done.
The next loop was amazing; we were mostly on our own alternating between trotting around 19kph and cantering slowly around 17kph to keep the average speed to around 18kph, bang on target. (I always have to factor in the length of time it takes to present when working out loop speeds). Chiara was much more sensible and truly a joy to ride until just before we came into the second vetgate where we met riders from another class going at speed. Calmness out of the window again just when you need it, so another stressful presentation to the vets although we managed it in around 7 minutes this time. Metabolics perfect but she trotted up lame in front, we were gutted.
Euston Park was amazing; the British team in the Europeans were also amazing coming 5th and bringing 4 out of 5 riders home: respect! It was such a busy Championships with so many horses and riders (over 600 in total), that I think we all found it quite exhausting with our tight schedule, an experience nevertheless.
Following the Masters, actually about an hour after, we trotted up Chiara at the stables and she appeared sound, subsequently on returning home she was trotted again on the road and then lunged in a circle and there was no trace whatsoever of lameness. Holidays for her now after a session with the physio next week to make sure everything is 100%.
I also trotted up and lunged Wizard who has been slightly lame for most of the summer and he, too, appeared to be OK. I think I will have him shod again at the end of October ready for a bit of fun this winter.
Fantom came back into work a few weeks ago with Dilmun; just for some gentle exercise and strengthening exercises. He was re-shod without pads which relieved the pressure on his feet and he appears to be totally sound. However, he is not relishing his work so I feel that it is time to end his season and not go to do a 1* event in September as I had originally planned. After the long, long journey to Euston, lack of sleep and whirlwind activity, I felt that it probably wasn’t worth repeating a trip of at least 8 hours each way for a competition that would just be for my fun!
Dilmun is trying to do his bit and is doing steady work with little canters now in preparation for his one and only ride of the year, a short graded ride in Cornwall towards the end of September. This will be over the moors which he loves and should, I hope, be a good end to the season.