First-timer's countdown to Badminton: 16 days to go

Our journey to Tyrella in Northern Ireland was much better this week. We didn’t get lost and luckily Ian [Stark] was on the same ferry so I managed to fit in a dressage lesson when we arrived.

Filius was foot perfect, which you think I would be happy with, but I’m so used to him being really cheeky that I wasn’t convinced by his behaviour. After my lesson I took him for a walk along the beach, which I though he’d like but he wasn’t keen on the sea. I think he thought it was going to eat him. I couldn’t even persuade him to put a hoof in the water!

I also had Fortunesnight and Cool Dancer with me so I rode them before quickly running round the novice course so I had time to walk the three-star course with Ian. The course was quite challenging with a few “rider frighteners” thrown in. There was a huge ditch and brush at fence 2, while the second water was a bounce in, five strides through the water then up a step to an angled brush on one forward stride. The next fence was a corner over a ditch with a nice(!) drop on it — I told myself it was good practice for Badminton’s Vicarage Vee!

Later on the course was a double of skinny hedges with an open ditch in front on a related distance, followed by a double of narrow triple brushes that were pretty big and had been designed so you could jump the corner of them on a straight line of four strides. With so much to take in I thought I had better go round again to make sure I had all my lines right, then it was off to the stables and bed!

Filius felt really raring to go when I warmed him up for the cross-country. He gave me a great ride, jumping clear through all the straight routes. The more difficult fences he jumped really well, but a couple of times he put in shorter strides over the straightforward fences which isn’t really like him — normally he loves taking a flyer when the opportunity appears! He picked up 18 time faults which I wasn’t bothered about as the aim was to clear over all the straight routes so mission accomplished.

After a couple of hours rest for Filius (not for me, I had to go cross-country on the other two) it was time for the show jumping. The course looked quite big but Filius has jumped plenty of big courses, such as at Kreuth CCI*** last year. We were lying seventh after cross-country, so I had time to give him a good walk about and watch a few competitors jump. Filius is normally easier to show jump after cross-country but he felt really flat — not tired, he just didn’t have enough spring in his step — and the show jumping turned into a bit of a disaster. I was worried that that was it; maybe he’d reached his limit, although I knew he had jumped courses as big before.

So back to the drawing board — what to do next? I decided to get him checked out to make sure he didn’t have any sore bits that would explain his unusual behaviour. It turns out he has picked up a muscle strain on his right side of his quarters, which happily explains why he lacked a bit of sparkle in the dressage, why he was chipping in short strides across country and why we picked up such a cricket score in the jumping.

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First-timer’s countdown to Badminton: 16 days to go

Badminton final scores