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Lincoln bound! We only blooming won AND qualified!

Writer's picture: Kelly LoganKelly Logan

6 July


After the debacle that was Hartpury and the disappointment of not really feeling like I'd done a championships road trip this year, I did two things -


1) entered trailblazers 2nd round


2) put myself forward for the Area 12 dressage team to qualify for the BRC Nationals in Lincoln.


My tests at Leyland Court - although qualifying us for the Trailblazer championships - left a lot to be desired. I think Freddie was very stiff from the journey that day. He's not travelling the best and I think having an hour and half journey straight into the warm up and two tests just left him a little wooden.


My confidence therefore was not at its highest - I may have actually been crying thinking about how badly we were going that could just be hormones - and whilst the entries were low - 7 in the Novice and Ele, I kind of had expectations of two last places.


Chard is a new venue for us but one I've wanted to go to for a while. I felt quite calm on the day, being on at 3.08 and 4pm means you have all day to get plaiting. I'd arrived at the yard for 9am, 3 hours to plait! and boxed up at 12, so I was starving when I got to Chard and went on the scrounge from Amanda for some sandwiches on arrival whilst Freddie has his 30 minute massage.


The sarnies were stashed in Ros and Dave's lorry so got a nice cuppa with it too. :) It was lovely sitting with everyone in Ros's lorry and chatting and I realised how nice it was to feel part of a team again.


The massage pad definitely seemed to help Fred. The 3 pandas and the luminous yellow bus however....

I felt he did a reasonable test. I realised that on entry and doing my first two half circles that I was quite tense and wondered why it always takes me 3-4 moves to get in the swing of things. There was an interesting moment at A when we halted and Fred clocked the bus and pandas. You can see it in his halt, there's the slow giraffe movement and apparently (as fed back to me after) the whole BKRC contingent collectively held their breath and said 'don't you dare fred...' thankfully this was followed by walk which is his best pace at the moment and we got 7's and and 8 for the free walk. Medium canter is still not in frame. But I felt we'd done OK.



There was half an hour to my Ele test and so I hopped off and had to run back to the car to get my E43 sheet for Ros to call the test. Just near the car I heard my name and I thought, that's odd everyone is down at the arenas.... and it was my lovely lovely friend from Surrey (now living in Chard) Rachel - we'd owned our first horses together, ridden out when we were a Jeannie's before that. It absolutely made my day.


My Ele test was a lot of fun. I'm not great at them just yet and often I feel like Fred is flagging a bit in my second test (always Ele) and so we aren't getting quite the omphf that I want or that we know we have. I'm going to start working on the fitness again.


Just before I started my test as I was trotting around the arena, Amanda Holmes ran down to say I'd won my Novice section. I was like "WHHHAAATT?" "Yep you've won" and then of course I had to try not to cry as I'm trotting around the outside of the Ele arena waiting for the bell.


Given Fred had developed a bit of a penchant for striking off on his right leg for left canter recently, the fact we had 5 to do today and we'd already done 3 well, meant I suppose we were going to fluff one, although in my mind we'd got over it. The irony being that he actually picked up a tidy left canter lead - but not when I wanted it - in the Ele hahaha. We were supposed to be doing 2 half circles and on the left half he just popped up in to canter. "4" my head rang. AND sadly, yes just before the walk to canter at A he spotted the shepherds huts and weight on the wrong shoulder off he went - argh! Which also meant we totally lost the shape of our 15m circle as I corrected him and lost the mark for that too - "4"


But Fred and I love Elementary, so much to do, leg yield, counter canter, medium trots/canters, never a dull moment, and - like Maurice Flitcroft - who cares that we're not great, we're doing it and we're loving it.


As expected we were last in the Ele test, BUT only by half a mark (184.5 to 185) so without the errors, we would have finally not come last lol. The person in 2nd was my team mate so Jane qualified with the team, the person in 4th on 185 was the 2nd qualifying and therefore highest place individual outside of the team and got the Lincoln call up. So I was absolutely delighted to discover three days later that we'd got the Wild Card for the Ele and will be riding it a Lincoln - OH MY GOD!! So excited.



My 3 comedy moments of the morning were:

  • In my infinite wisdom, I'd decided whilst I wasn't gong to solo comb Fred's mane again, I would maybe just split the excess over to the right and lop it off. The result is obviously that his mane is thinner for plaiting..... it just looks a bit odd - sigh. However, I decided that I was more concerned with how it would look at Trailblazers and just plaited up without fiddling further.


  • There was a comical moment when I decided to load. With no show on at Badgworth today, the outdoor arena was hired out. I'd parked alongside the top of the arena ready for loading. The current people had parked alongside the bottom of the arena closest to the gate - all good. The 12pm booking people parked in between us, blocking my ability to load up. The whole car park and that's where they went. Anyhoo, cursing slightly at people's stupidity, ready to load, I pulled the trailer forward a couple of car length so I could drop the ramp and have a run up...... As I walked to drop the trailer ramp, the 12pm booking people drove their car into the space. Incredulous and frustrated I yelled out "I'm actually trying to load, can you not park there?!" The lady looked very surprised.... I mean of course, why would someone with a trailer hitched up be loading!???

  • Having wandered around Chard to 'get our bearings' we popped into have a cuppa with Dave and Ros in their lorry and grab some food. Jayne was sat with Fred and messaged in reply to food to say Fred was becoming fractious. Karen and I left the lorry expecting to walk up a car park to find our trailer and realised we were parked directly behind it. Yep, Kelly Sat Nav as effective as ever!











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