Harriet Upton Blog April 2016 – Up and Away!

Harriet Upton “Yay the event season is finally underway! It took two attempts to get to our first event. Isleham didn’t happen due to me being ill and Tweseldown was cancelled because of the ground, but we finally got there as Aldon became our first event!

I took Boo and Hector to do the Novice. Now, if you have ever read my blogs before you will know that we always have some sort of disaster on our journey or it never runs as smoothly as we would like. This should have been the most straight forward of journeys, but we had a slight detour on the way there and ended up going through a housing estate, our three and a half hour journey resulted in four and a half hour journey!

It was a quick turn around, I had no time to walk the cross-country, so I jumped straight on Hector to do my dressage test… he did a sweet test with a few fresh moments.

I had time for a quick croissant and then it was Boo’s turn, I stayed very quiet trying not to wake the diva up inside and ended up getting a 30’s test and she stayed sweet with just a couple mistakes. I was so pleased she didn’t explode and I was just having a nice walk back the lorry on a long rein, thinking about how good she had been, when all of a sudden she exploded she did a buck, a rear and leap all at the same time! This left me holding onto a few plaits for dear life to keep me on board!

So by then the horses had realized they were at an actual horse trials, that they weren’t just going to go round in circles all day, it had suddenly become very exciting. Show jumping both horses was interesting; they were both a complete handful! I nearly bit the dust again when I was in the warm up on Hector, but this time I had a neck strap on and I managed to regain my seat! The actual show jumping rounds were a little unruly but I stayed on.

The cross country went a lot better. They both did a lovely clear round and I kept them steady to avoid any mistakes. I was very happy with them for their first event it even though they were a little excited!

My next event was Munstead, this time it was Rosie and Arabella’s turn. Just the one little thing on the journey this time, just with the haynet cupboard bursting open, but haynets were recovered and we were soon underway.

Rosie did a very obedient dressage test, Arabella not so much! She tried to gallop back to the lorry park afterwards too! We were nearly on for two double clears but Rosie just tipped the last pole and then they went on to do two lovely clear cross country rounds. The weather was awful but the girls were great and felt so good. Getting out of Munstead was a different matter, it took Mum half an hour, as it was absolutely gridlocked with traffic trying to come in and traffic trying to get out and no marshals. We have a 36ft, 18 tonne lorry, which certainly takes some manoeuvring on a narrow path! We finally made it out and home and so I’m thrilled it’s all starting again!! Wish me luck!!