Simon Grieve’s Pau blog: brilliant Boz scores a personal best
It was an early wake up call yesterday morning at 6am (well 5am British time actually) to get Boz mucked out and ready for a rather dark ride.
I wanted to give his legs a stretch and make sure he was loosened up nicely for the trot-up at 8.15am. The British team vet Liz Brown and Yogi Breisner were on hand to give assistance if required and it was great having them there, as I was on my lonesome. Bozzie trotted very well for the ground jury and passed with flying colours, as did all the Brits.
Trot-up complete, times were then available and we were set to perform at 14.27. I took Bozzie for a canter past the racehorse training ground. He cantered well, but we did manage to wind up one racehorse in particular that was walking innocently up the gallop. The chap did incredibly well to stay on!
I popped Bozzie away for a couple of hours and prepared everything for our dressage. I worked him about an hour and a half prior to his test, then put him away for 25min before bringing him back out for 10 minutes for his final preparations. A long-winded process, but it worked really well because it stops him getting bored and trying to find things (naughty things that is!) to entertain himself. We pulled off a personal best score of 50.8, and I couldn’t be happier. He’s such a star.
After much congratulating of ourselves, my mum and stepfather arrived, sadly just missing the test — but it’s so lovely to have them here supporting!
I walked the cross-country course with Yogi this afternoon, and it is certainly a serious, serious track with very little let up. I’m excited at the prospect of tackling it with my wing man Bozzie. If anyone can do it, Bozzie can! I’ll keep you posted!
Grievesy
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Professional event rider Simon joined our blogging team in spring 2015. Simon runs a busy eventing yard, with horses competing across the levels up to five-star.