Spruce Lodge Classic 4th & 5th August 2018
Fresh from an amazing international debut last week with Let’s Go at Hickstead CDI we took on the Small Tour Championship at the SER Classic.
An interesting warm up on Saturday with a few unrequired movements, (memories from previous years) led to a slightly tense start to the PSG, however as intelligent as ever Ludwig quickly dropped the subject and got on with the job at hand. Two minor mistakes proved costly in a class with finest of margins, but absolutely stocked to be second in the class with a super score 69.12%
Having left home at 7:30am on Saturday morning, we both felt like 17:00 would never come around, and when it eventually did, I guess my horse was ready than I was! Curious to see how a new floor plan would ride, I got caught up a little too focused on that and allowed Ludwig a little too much freedom at times which caused him to get a little hotter than was acceptable. All in all the floor plan was very much liked and the difficulty ranked high, so excited to see where it can lead us to in the future!
Sunday saw Inter I day, and determined to not over cook him up like I did for the freestyle and equally not let him have a temper tantrum in the warm up I tried something a little different with him, to my amazement and the shock of my mother it worked like a charm! (He made friends with a cross country jump and walked around it for over 5 minutes!) By far the best Inter I test I’ve ever ridden with him and a new PB at this level for us of 69.85% saw us joint 1st in the class. An unfortunate moment mid extended canter where my wonderful horse thought it would be the perfect time to produce two beautiful one time changes cost us breaking the illusive 70% barrier… But that is for another day!
Finishing 2nd in the Small Tour Championship less than half a percent behind the winner, I couldn’t be more proud of far we’ve come in this year!
Huge thanks as always to my parents, my amazing team both at the shows and at home keeping everything ticking along. Markus Waterhues for all his words of wisdom and for finding him for me 4 years ago! Ludwig’s incredible veterinary team led by Heinrich Zieg and all at Somerton Equine Hospital. Our one and only chiropractor John Roche, (who relocated my finger in Wednesday so I could actually hold the reins again!) And to my sponsor Alan Ward if Saorise Saddlery and Dressage By Design