Neddy posing infront of the house

 I feel I have to say a little something about the demise of Longleat Horse trials though I know nothing of the circumstances of their decision, ( I didn’t go last year). It seems a terrible shame that it is no longer running even if it is rescheduled for another another tiptop venue who plan to have an equally super xc course. I would love to tell you that Longleat was a horse trials dear to my heart because of the incredible international success I have achieved there but  unfortunaely I can’t! I’ve only ever been  there twice; to a novice in 2010 and an  intermediate many moons ago.Both of these were successful days but I think it was such a beautiful and unique venue that success wasn’t necessarily the key to having a good day.

As I arrived for my first time, I remember being swept off my feet as I drove down the long drive, in a rainbow tunnel of flowering rhodedendrons and  emerged at the top of the hill to that fabulous view of the roadway sweeping away down to the house. It took my very breath away, what  few select people ever had the  privilged chance  to have been driven down there  in horsedrawn carriage in flambouyant   finery? It must have been truly stunning.

Anyhow on that day I’d had the life half scared out of me  from walking the course the night before and finding a double of corners on the intermediate xc. I went straight home and promptly set up some showjumps to practice, except I must have got the striding quite wrong and suceeded only in making us both turn a somersault and rattle our confidence. Smurf, the dear true soldier that he was never faultered the next day over the real thing and it taught me a lesson. He never would have batted an eyelid at it anyway, it was solid, well built , rode well and he had plenty of past knowledge to draw on .It was my own feeble doubts and insecurities that led me to set up such a stupid trap fence at home.

The real reason I loved Longleat though was of course for the animals.How often are you ever going to get to warm up for the dressage beside a grazing hippo. I was a bit panicked about taking Neddy here for this for reason. Ned had a total intolerance for donkeys, let along anything more exotic and if you were taking him out for a hack he’d always keep half an eye open for any furry fourlegged monsters that might be lurking in the corners of our vision. We got lucky though, the hippos hid til later and he did a resonable test and jumped very well, clear xc and  probably a pole or two in the sj. Well enough to get a place, qualify us for Pompadour YH* and leave me feeling every chuffed that a young horse  who had been only round one novice track would be so bold and brave.

(Ned in action over the boat before the water.)

As a little reward to him I felt it was only fair to let him see a hippo before we left so I drove over to offer him a glimpse. He thought it was monstrous and then nearly had a heart attack when I drove him away nearly overturning the trailer by driving it off a steep little bank. Perhaps he thought we were under hippo attack!

 

 


 


I do feel sad that I won’t get the opportunity to compete there again, but  equally lucky I  ever had the chance to go at all.