18 April 2021
After watching another helpful 'Live' from Jenni in the Empowered Equestrian Group, I realised that it might be an idea to add another 'step' to my plan and do a dressage competition, so that we had at least been 'out' before we hit the excitement of a hunter trial.
In the week run up I felt that Freddie had been feeling a bit crooked. I contacted Kazia to come in early May, hoping to carry through until after the Hunter Trial.
Fred behaved impeccably at the dressage. He did a very obedient test and I couldn't fault him but he simply couldn't get the lift and poor boy was VERY stuck left, doing the dressage test pretty much on three tracks. That said he was still 12th out of 25 finishing on a score of 63% with 1st place only on 68%, 2nd on 67% and then 3rd to me from 65%.
So before I left I had said no chance of a frilly with 25 people, but actually if Fred hadn't got himself 'stuck' he could have been up there!
It did mean of course, that I had to withdraw from the hunter trial on the 25th April. The adult in me knew this was the best thing for Freddie but the kid in me was gutted about not going after planning on it for so long, but when Kazia came out she said he was very, very stuck and he needed to be seen not just then but again in 3 weeks. Poor Freddie. So to appease the 'kid' in me, I booked XC training at Pontispool on 10 May before it shut using my last fence judging voucher.