Life keeps getting in the way of all my good intentions and I am now really starting to panic that Sara (Donner Sara B) will not be fit enough for the Badminton Mitsubishi Cup.
The good weather all week had made working away so much harder — all I want to do is go and ride Sara and get ready for Badminton but I am stuck in a hotel room with nothing much to do other than paint my nails.
The release of the cross-country course pictures did alleviate my boredom and give me the eventing fix I needed for a little while. The course is running in the opposite direction from last year, and there looks to be some really good questions. I did get super excited when I saw the picture of the Samsung phone on the advert for the cross-country app of which you can use to download the course to your phone, but actually the app is still not available on android — grrrrr. Please, if the designers are reading this, can you make it available for android users, but for now I will have to settle with viewing the course online.
I was hoping to make it back from working in London with enough time to get Sara to Kelsall Hill Equestrian Centre for some cross-country schooling and fitness work. Unfortunately the trains had other ideas! So we headed out to Delamere Forest instead. I am lucky enough to live within hacking distance and we now have a well-established route were we can get in some canter work up and down some hills. Plus the advantage that it was 6pm on a Wednesday was that I didn’t have to stop for push chairs.
Hacking Sara
I had Thursday off work and headed to the opening day of the Grand National meeting at Aintree. I don’t think it matters how hard I try, Sara will never be as fit and slim as those racehorses!
Continued below…
The road to the Badminton Mitsubishi Cup: less than ideal preparation
Entries are closed and the countdown to Badminton
The road to the Badminton Mitsubishi Cup: mud hatred continues
Carrie has finally got her eventing season underway
I had a friend’s wedding to get to on Saturday so Sara had to make do with a quick school before I headed up for a day trip to Cumbria (about two hours each way), although I did pass Hutton in the Forest which is one of my favourite events.
On Sunday we finally made it out for the cross-country school that I had hoped for on Wednesday. We hadn’t been cross-country since Stafford Horse Trials. I wasn’t feeling very secure to begin with — all the work on we have been doing on her showjumping has also shortened her up for cross-country so it took me a bit of time to adjust. But we found our stride and she was jumping really well in the end — it turned out that one of the fences we tackled was an intermediate fence!
Love,
Carrie (and Sara)
