Sunday saw me and Trojan Odyssey taking the trip to the delectable Horseheath Horse Trials near Cambridge, and what a lovely venue it is, with possibly the poshest loos of any event I’ve been too!
It wasn’t quite far enough away to warrant an overnighter, so It was going to be a long day! My lorry is 25years old and is never in a rush to go anywhere, it will hit it’s speed limit of 56 on a downhill, but everywhere up hill I’ll be lucky to get 20….. So with this in mind, the lorry was loaded and we left the yard at 5.30 (after getting there early enough to feed turnout etc…. the rest of the yard, I think my alarm went off at 3.0 a.m.). At this point, the good old LBE battle wagon, decided to be young and spritely and get us there over an hour earlier than I had anticipated! But that gave me plenty of time to walk the course, have a cuppa, and enjoy the most luxurious porta potties I’ve ever seen.
After a certain amount of procrastination, me and Troy got togged up, and made our way over to dressage, where we spent 20 minutes working in in a beautifully relaxed and consistent carriage and rhythm and generally poncing about, before deciding to actually learn the test. Our time came, and Troy rose to the challenge admirably, putting forth his best test to date.
Then it was off to show jumping….. the less said about that the better really……. but to summarise, Troy and I had a differing of opinion and threw away our very strong dressage score by adding several poles too It!
But after that it was time for us to redeem ourselves and dazzle everyone with a lovely XC round, and I have to admit, Troy did me proud! He took it on like a real pro and stormed round the course with only one near death experience (3 strides out from the saw bench he was convinced it was only one stride, and things got a little… er…. convoluted) but he rallied easily and we continued on with no further mishaps, and even had a brief chat with a lovely gent stood outside the commentary box.
If it is not a venue you have visited yet, I’d really suggest you give it a try. The officials are all incredibly helpful, and very efficient. And there is a big bowl of sweets in the secretaries, as well as dog treats. You can see nearly the whole cross country course from the lorry park, and the site is laid out in a very professional manner.
So well done Horse heath, and thank you. It was a pleasure to visit.
Little Bentley Eventing 