A few weeks ago, Susie Berry wasn’t sure if she’d make it to Badminton Horse Trials, presented by Mars Equestrian, with Ringwood LB, after breaking a finger in the warm-up at Lincoln Horse Trials in March.
“I was on a five-year-old in the warm-up, cantering around thinking he felt lovely and then he stopped, spooked and spun to the left,” the Irish rider recalls. “I hit my fist on his neck and initially just thought I’d whacked it, but I had broken my ring finger.”
Susie explains that the injury mostly affected her mental preparation for Badminton; she had to take two weeks off riding, and is here riding with the rein between her middle and fore fingers instead of her middle and ring fingers, but she says the biggest challenge was getting into the right frame of mind as the weeks ticked by and the five-star drew closer.
“It was hard to feel positive about it when some people were telling me it would take six weeks to heal and I shouldn’t even think about going to Badminton, and then on the other side of the fence others were saying, ‘It’s only a hand, it’s fine’,” she explains. “And I do like to have a proper time frame, to do this, then this, then this, and “Albie” missed a couple of runs because of it.”
Once she was back on board, Susie took Helen Caton and Gwen Purce’s 14-year-old gelding to Burnham Market, thinking that if he didn’t fill her with confidence there, she wouldn’t go to Badminton.
“But he was actually brilliant at Burnham Market. I found he didn’t lack match practice,” she says. “I felt fine too, and didn’t even feel as though I had missed anything.”
Susie Berry: ‘He is a hard horse to get right’
So the pair made it to their first Badminton together, and scored 31.9 to lie equal 17th with Austin O’Connor after the first day of dressage action.
“I had a few mistakes – he is a hard horse to get right in there as he is naturally very laid-back but sometimes in the atmosphere he can come a bit tense. I think I was maybe on for 10 minutes too long – he felt beautiful in the warm-up but I felt like I might have used up all his flash in the warm-up which was a bit of a shame.”
But Susie is looking forward to giving the cross-country “our best crack” on Sunday, with Albie having spent a week with her trainer Piggy March while she was out of action, giving her confidence in his fitness.
“I’ve been down to Piggy’s a good few times for lessons and she helped me again yesterday. She’s an absolute legend – she tells me when to kick and when to pull, and I just do it,” laughs Susie. “Even if I can just talk through the course with her before Sunday I will feel more confident.”
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