Lauren Shannon’s blog: planning the eventing season
Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. I’m so sorry that my blogs have gone quiet of late. It’s only because our yard has been in full swing and I seem to have no time at the minute to write everything down.
Now that 2012 is upon us, it’s time to do the event planner for the year. I tend to work backwards from what three-days I’m planning on attending with each horse and decide which one-days and CIC competitions they need to do as preparation and qualification.
Louie (Zero Flight) will go to Badminton again this spring and Gentel Lux will hopefully go to Bramham in June. The Pearson family, who have been long-time supporters (and helpers!) of mine, have just bought a half share of Smart Lady, so we will have to sit down and decide if she is going to go to Houghton with Crunchie (Kilcannon Credit Crunch) or maybe even up to Balcarres, the new event being held in Fife.
The youngsters are all going well too, with the horses I’ve been given to produce and sell on being ready to advertise this month.
I have managed to get out showjumping and do my first ever British Dressage show with Louie in the past couple weeks too. All the horses are jumping very well, with Louie winning whichever class we put him in – what a clever boy. I think he knows that I count on him to win us back some of the entry money!
Badminton final scores
I have also had a couple lessons with Tracie Robinson through the World Class programme and her help, along with Judy Bradwell’s, is really bringing my dressage on all the horses to another level.
So now it’s off for more World Class training this week at the Unicorn Trust with Louie and Lux, which will honestly feel like a couple of days holiday.
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I suppose all in all we’ve had a very productive winter so far, so let’s hope no snow comes along any time soon to foil our plans.
Lauren
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Event rider Lauren Shannon blogged on Horseandhound.co.uk from June 2011 until September 2014. Born in Brighton, she lived in America from the age of three to 16, returning to the UK to go to university after she finished school. After university she worked for Mark and Tanya Kyle before setting up her own yard in Leicestershire. Her best result to date was finishing 9th at the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials with her top horse, Zero Flight.