Nana Dalton's Burghley blog: two weeks to go

Nana Dalton and team at Hartpury — (Image credit: credit unknown)

Nana Dalton, Horse & Hound guest blogger, is counting down the days to the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials

The two-week countdown to the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials is now on. We’ve been drawn no 51 in the running order and with Absolut Opposition (Miley). coming out of his final prep run really well, the excitement is now building! I said this before in my Badminton blog, but experience with horses means we really do take nothing for granted and so it comes almost as a welcome surprise that we’re still actually on track for our second four-star of the season.

No sooner had I finished writing last week’s blog at midnight on Thursday, I zonked fast asleep only to be woken at 2am by a full-on power shower of rain pouring through the seal of the tilt cab and into my bed. Again more thanks to my wonderful friends, the Brewer family who live next door to Hartpury and had my mattress etc littered around their kitchen to dry out by their Aga. Also big thanks to my fantastic new sponsor, Peper Harow Horseboxes, that sorted out the problem so at least the lorry won’t be the cause of any future sleepless nights!

Despite the few unscheduled challenges that we encountered at Hartpury, it ended up being a happy and successful week. Miley topped a good dressage off with a superb double clear, which will hopefully have set him up perfectly for Burghley, and Margaret Roser’s two lovely horses (Abbeylara Prince in the three-star and Bogrant, pictured above, in the one-star) were both in the prize money coming 10th and 5th respectively. We also had Litchfield Perdita competing in the two-star. She was fabulous all week until a touch of ‘stage fright’ got the better of her in the showjumping. A mention must go to NAF, which sponsored the event and provided superb hospitality during the week. This was very much appreciated by all my owners and myself.

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Nana first joined our blogging team in the run up to her first attempt at Badminton Horse Trials in spring 2015, then rejoined us as a guest blogger during the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials in autumn 2015. She also shared her highs and lows while competing at Burghley in 2019.