Triumph and Tragedy at Felbridge

Felbridge Combined Training, a set on Flickr.

Funny old day and bit of a roller coaster of emotions. We went to Felbridge Combined Training with Gail Stephens and Beanie. We took Glimpse and Yara and met David and Will there.

Yara (Laraghlee) absolute superstar 27 dressage and clear show jumping, we won! She felt really good. Bit of a naughty girl on the lorry but there was a lot of waiting around, still I forgive her anything because she tries so hard.

This was Glimpse’s first ever Combined Training and first ever dressage test. Glimpse is our retrained racehorse who is 6 this year. I was so proud of her, she was so quiet and well behaved, she just stood on the lorry and did not get over excited in the warm ups. She really is the easiest horse to take out. She warmed up beautifully and then went in the dressage arena. She’s never seen white dressage boards before and she thought they were jumps, she properly locked on to them! She didn’t quite have the focus but I was so pleased with her she got a 38 dressage. We had a couple of show jumps down, which is unlike her but it’s a big arena with lots of spooky jumps. She was looking at everything around her but she never refused anything and my goodness has she got a lovely future ahead of her.

Do I have to talk about the BE100 with Yara? Excellent dressage when we left we were leading in the dressage not sure what happened to the jumping, we had a few poles but to be honest when you read my last paragraph you will probably understand why.

Just before we were due to go into our jumping tragedy struck, there was a lady riding a very exuberant horse, she did a clear round but just as she finished, the horse staggered sideways and had a heart attack. There were not many people around and Mum and David ran into the ring but by then the horse (Ron) had fallen over and rolled on to his rider, I handed Glimpse to the boy who was stewarding and went in to help. It was obvious he was not going to make it. We made him as comfortable as we could and I stroked his head as he passed away. He didn’t suffer and I understand the rider is going to be ok. It was a horrible experience, everyone at Felbridge acted very quickly. RIP Ron.