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Piggy March: ‘It’s definitely not all downhill on the way home from Blair’

*Opinion*
Piggy March Piggy March

    • Piggy March reflects on Blair, a charity challenge and Paris 2024

    I’m writing this after making the long journey back from Defender Blair International Horse Trials – the last fixture there, which is sad, but I feel lucky we’ve been able to compete there many times. We wish the best of luck to the new Scottish fixture at Scone.

    I enjoyed the fact Blair was always a cross-country competition and over the years it’s taught many to ride terrain and get a horse fit. I was very pleased with how all mine ran up the hills and coped with the undulations and mud.

    Wills Oakden topped off the final event by winning the CCI4*-L on Keep It Cooley, who has also won the CCI2*-L and CCI3*-L. It made for a special send-off for locals – the cruel Scottish weather didn’t stop vast crowds turning out. Wills is such a talent and that was no mean feat.

    I won’t miss the drive home from Blair as it seemed to take three hours to travel 11 miles after leaving, but it did make me realise what a big deal Cycle4Caroline, the challenge we are undertaking in memory of my husband Tom’s sister, will be. We start from Blair on 20 November and there was definitely no feeling of going downhill on the way home, sadly!

    I’m excited for the challenge, as much as I’m dreading it, because I really believe in the causes we are supporting: the British Eventing Support Trust and Spinal Research. We want to encourage our sport and a life with the horses, who we all so respect and care for, but this year has brought home how fine the line can be in terms of something going wrong.

    Training on a bike is more difficult than I anticipated and incredibly uncomfortable. We try to cycle a few times a week – Northamptonshire is quite hilly, so even an hour here or there has to help – and to do one long ride a week, which is currently four hours but soon needs to be six or seven. Just finding time, with 20 horses and trying to be a mum in the school holidays, is tricky.

    We’ll be doing 1,100km in 10 days, with bad weather likely as it’s November. It’ll be a hard slog, but my legs do work so I have to shut up and get on with it. We’ll keep positive as it’s something we very much want to do.

    Three-in-a team was exciting

    I think we all missed watching the Paris Olympics when they finished. For the first time, I thought the three-in-a-team format worked and made it exciting.

    I never thought I’d say that as I have concerns about the mental health of the fourth rider – it’s brutal having reserves of the calibre of Yasmin Ingham – and horse welfare, with three needing to finish – but the Japanese bronze proved a medal is possible even with a substitution. If three in a team helps keep our sport in the Olympics, that’s what we have to do.

    Much as I’d love to have been involved myself as an athlete, standing back looking in, I was very proud to be British. All our teams were outstanding.

    My passion is eventing, obviously, and they all did what was expected. I was wowed by the showjumpers – their courses looked enormous and the style, composure and horsemanship our guys showed was breathtaking. As for the dressage team, it was wonderful they took home a medal, particularly for Carl Hester, who is one of the best the world has ever seen and was at his seventh Olympics.

    We move on to the Paralympics and the autumn three-days, starting at Defender Burghley Horse Trials this week.

    It’s rare that timings allow Olympic horses also to go to Burghley, but three who did the full event in Paris also tackle Burghley and one of those, Lordships Graffalo with Ros Canter, is my pick for the title. It’s a top field, which is great for the event and the sport, and I wish them all the best.

    ● Did you find the three-to-a-team format in Paris exciting? Write to us at hhletters@futurenet.com, including your name, nearest town and country, for the chance for your letter to appear in a forthcoming issue of the magazine

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