Supercob 'Go Go Go!"
After managing to avoid the dreadful bad luck that had hit the rest of our Calderdale team, Murphy ('Supercob') and I, plus hubby Paul ('Supergroom') headed down the M1 to Aston le Walls for the National Horse Trials Championships. Our preparation had gone pretty well thanks to Heather's equilates and body conditioning classes (me) and millions of circuits of our arena (Murphy) and we were both feeling super fit! However, I will admit to feeling slightly apprehensive as in the last few weeks my normally 100% reliable jumper had cultivated a cheeky run-out habit – marvellous timing eh? Plus, I also managed to pick up a nasty bout of flu the week before the event! So, armed with a plethora of over the counter medicines, multi-vitamins and positive mental attitude off we went!
We arrived late Friday afternoon in glorious sunshine and once Supercob was settled in his temporary lodgings Supergroom set about the next most important task – erecting the Morgan gazebo/beer tent! Once that was sorted, we set off to explore the site and after a quick Magners to encourage positive thinking we headed towards the cross-country course. The course looked pretty decent, not big but plenty of questions including a sunken road combination plus skinny fourth element and not just one but two corners! Corners are not Murphy's favourite thing and I was a little concerned, especially as the second one followed a fairly meaty drop fence. I was also shocked by the rock hard ground and disappointed that the organisers didn't appear to have made any effort to improve the going. With the prospect of dressage at 8.45 in the morning we grabbed some food and headed back to Chez Morgan for a few beers before a fairly early night.
By next morning, Supercob had definitely picked up on the atmosphere of the occasion and despite the early hour his eyes were out on stalks when we made our way to the dressage warm up! Working in was fairly exciting, the snaffle bit didn't seem to be having any effect at all and at one point he took off with me in canter across the warm up area. Just at that point I heard 'number 520, are you ready?' Mmm, not really! True to form, he managed to contain his excitement during the test, and despite a very inattentive free walk on a long rein he did a great job, scoring 30.5 which put us in 5th place!
Positive mental attitude was good by this point and a couple of hours later we headed off to SJ feeling confident and determined. The fences were bright and the course seemed to be causing a few problems but Supercob was on form and jumped a fantastic clear round – cue lots of cheers from the crowd who are always enamoured by the sight of a jumping draft horse!! By the end of the day, many more fences had fallen and I was delighted to discover that we'd moved up to 3rd place and just 1 point behind the leader in my section!!!!
This year, the BRC team were also hosting the European ** competition over the weekend. This is a team and individual 3 day event and several countries were represented including GB, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. It really added to the atmosphere of the weekend – most of the teams had brought an army of supporters with them and there was a real party atmosphere. The Belgian crowd were particularly impressive – their supporters were all sporting matching red baseball caps and they seemed to be everywhere you looked! We spent the afternoon on Saturday watching the ** cross-country - it was big, scary and very eventful. One poor German rider's bit broke mid-round and her horse bolted into the lorry park jumping several tents and cars. Thankfully both rider and horse were unhurt (though very shaken) - here's the link to YouTube if you want to see for yourselves!
CIC** horse, jumps car! - YouTube
Inspired by the ** performances and our overnight placing I was looking forward to the final day's excitement, roads and tracks, steeplechase and cross-country. The weather on Sunday was perfect, dry, sunny and breezy and we set off on the first phase of roads and tracks feeling really positive. We arrived at the steeplechase with time to spare – this was our first attempt at this phase and I wasn't expecting too much as speed is not Supercob's strength! Bless him, he loved every second of it and tried his absolute best. It felt like we were going very fast but we still managed to clock up a couple of time penalties! By this time, we were both feeling quite excited and as we set off on the second phase of roads and tracks I sensed that my arms were going to be a bit longer by the time we finished! Murphy decided that the objective of this 'game' was to catch up the horse in front and despite walking a fair part of the last section we still managed to overtake the previous horse and rider! We arrived at the ten minute box early and both with very high heart-rates so Supergroom set about calming us both down with water and polos!
Our ten minutes seemed to fly by and before I knew it we were in the start box for cross-country. We set off at a decent pace and flew fences 1, 2 and 3 - next up the dreaded corner…and a cheeky run-out, followed by a second cheeky run-out! DISASTER! Smack, smack and we finally managed to get over it, and then flew fences 5 and 6. Fence 7, a double, another cheeky run-out at second element and hind foot caught on fence…cue decision to retire!!! And so we made the long walk of shame back to the lorry park. To say I was gutted is a massive understatement especially after the Day 1 performance. It was a long journey back home to Halifax but it gave me plenty of time to reflect on how well we'd done to qualify in the first place, what fun we'd had getting ourselves fit and ready and what a fantastic time we'd had – especially the roads and tracks and steeplechase! I’m just sorry my ‘teamies’ weren’t there to enjoy the fun too. Murphy is 15 years old now, and after several successful years in eventing I think he's trying to tell me that he needs to slow down a little! Competing at the Area qualifiers and the Champs was just another fantastic experience to add to the many we've had together in the last 11 years and I've decided now that we will focus more seriously on dressage. I’ll let someone else have a go next year – here’s hoping they enjoy it as much as we did!