Yesterday was another day of 30°+ temperatures and I’m already missing complaining that it’s too cold! As someone who doesn’t cope well in this heat, I had to limit my time at the show ring and spend most of my day drinking water in my lorry with a fan on me.
The weather was reasonably bearable first thing in the morning and I headed down to the Hickstead shopping village. I can’t tell you how hard it was filming a time lapse video and not being able to stop and buy things! I’m sure it saved me some money though.
There is a great selection of shops this year and the shopping village is crammed full of trade stands. If you’re planning on coming here for the shopping then you won’t be disappointed. There is something for everyone, including those non horsey partners that are being dragged along on the promise of burgers and beer.
When I started out showing, I wanted to specialise in working hunters so I headed down to watch the 153cm working hunter pony class. It always amazes me how I can’t jump a cross pole, yet these kids are jumping bullfinches that are taller than me! The track was technical and not easy, but so many of the kids made light work of it.
I managed almost an hour at ring side before heading back to my lorry to drink my way through a case of water. I had to venture out later to put more bedding into my stable as one of my horses was on the way down. I almost passed out walking to the stable with a bale of bedding in the wheelbarrow so I was horrified to see so many ponies in their stables wearing rugs! I have had a bit of a rant in my video about how shocked I was so I won’t go on about it here too much. I’d love to know if people agree with me on this?
Today is hunter day and I am riding my heavyweight, Blue Print, who qualified in his first ever RIHS qualifier this year.
Check back tomorrow to see how I get on and I promise I’ll get some more footage of the classes here too!
Dan
