22/07/2024
A lovely testimony from the amazing CLB Dressage recently.
Thank you Chloe, you are a joy to treat and I am so glad your event went so well!
After a challenging week leading up to Chard, and having decided to take two horses, one of which unexplainably HATES this venue and another who had never competed in such a big competition environment….I hadn’t exactly set myself up for much success this weekend.
I (rather ambitiously) set out to mayyyybe, with some extreme luck, have 3 successful tests out of the 8 I had entered. So never could I ever have imagined that we would be returning home with 8 incredible scores, 4 championship qualifications and 3 personal bests!
Romeo
Fri Prelim - 68.2% 🥈
Fri Novice FSM - 69.17% 🥈
Sat Prelim - 69% 🥈
Sat Novice FSM - 74.44% 🥇(new PB and an overall win!)
So a Prelim regional qualification and a Novice freestyle area festival qualification (in his first two novice tests ever! 🥹)
Damion
Fri Advanced medium - 65.9% 🥈
Fri Advanced medium FSM - 67.83% 🥈
Sat Advanced medium - 70.77% 🥇 (definitely a new PB and an overall win!)
Sat Advanced medium FSM - 72.33% 🥈 (new music PB!)
So an Advanced Medium area festival qualification and an Advanced Medium freestyle area festival qualification.
I am so proud of my boys and completely buzzing that we’ve finally started seeing some results. But beyond that, I am so incredibly grateful to the team around us, specifically over the last couple of weeks who helped bring everything together for this weekend. So here comes the ‘thank yous’, of which there are many…brace yourselves….
A very big thank you to heal, who lent us her lovely lorry for the weekend after ours sold a few weeks ago. 🙈 A huge thank you to bain and Amelia Bain, who did the most unbelievably amazing job of looking after my princesses who were absolutely pristine upon our arrival home. A big thank you to Liz, who kept Romance ticking whilst we were away, ready for his first big boy stay away show. Massive appreciation for Sam, who fixed the Pumpkin Spice when he decided last minute to opt out of the ‘sound and ready to compete’ club. Another thank you to Laura Wilson, who made sure both boys were on top form ready for their party - on two separate occasions thanks to Damion’s dramatics. And a huge thank you to The Physio Room who ensured I was completely ready to take on the mammoth task of 8 tests over the two days.
(As you can see, it was quite a team effort to pull this weekend together!)
A huge hugeeee thank you to our little team at chard who made the weekend so awesome. Diane, Alisa Liz Paul. We were very lucky to have such incredible company. And a huge congratulations to all of our incredible teammates on their successes this weekend too!
And, of course, the most enormous appreciation for my parents. It’s a tough sport at the best of times, but our gorgeously defiant Damion certainly heightens this (quite literally through his acrobatics 🤸🏻)…and it’s not just me who suffers the disappointments. So a huge thank you to Julie and Gavin Bain for endlessly supporting my desperate determination to win some fun little rosettes. 😝
Equally, the same goes for Liz, who has continued to support us through the years of lows. Our successes this weekend are most certainly a credit to you (and your resilience in training us - I know it must be super taxing! 😵😅😜)
So all round, a very uplifting outing, returning home with 2x 1sts and 6x 2nds! 🤩
Essay over….but definitely some highlights to come once I have sorted through the 45mins worth of videoed tests!
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