It was a mammoth class of 38, running from just past 11am to almost six o’clock in the evening – that took in pretty much everything the British weather has to offer.
Sarah is based in Cheshire and shares the ride on Geniaal with his owner Sarah Rao. She was quite early to go in proceedings here at the National Dressage Championships so had an anxious wait to see where she’d finished.
“As much as I want my friends to do well, all afternoon I was thinking ‘Please don’t do as well as I did!’,” she laughed.
“I’ve ridden him once in the last month, which was yesterday, because Sarah rides him most of the time – so he’s totally been a product of her work.
“It just so happed that I rode him in one test at the beginning of the year which qualified us for this. That’s partially why I was so nervous this morning. Normally I’m quite chill, but I felt a little bit underprepared.
“I knew he was a good horse and that I had a chance, so I was adding pressure on myself. I had my trainers Hannah Moody and Richard Davison here for the warmup and they know me so well and did a good job keeping me calm.”
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Amazingly, for a rider as decorated as Sarah, this was her first-ever national title.
“I felt like it was something that was never going to happen, but thankfully he’s a truly, truly amazing horse and I’m just so grateful to be able to ride him.”
What set the pair apart was their ability to nail the double-marked coefficient movements. They averaged over seven for the collected walk before the pirouettes – which tripped up a lot of other combinations – and scored several eights for their canter half-pirouettes.
“He can get hotter than he looks sometimes, and 10 minutes before I went in I was like ‘Oh God, he’s getting quite excited.’
“But when I actually went in he felt so rideable and so with me. Then the rain came and he got a little tight. It really, really came down during my extended walk, which is always a bit of the test where we have to be a little careful picking him up for his canter.
“But thankfully we just about managed to get away with it and then his canter was just a dream after that.”
What’s next after the National Dressage Championships?
Big things are now in the offing for Geniaal , but it won’t include climbing any further up the levels for the 13-year-old Vivaldi gelding.
“His owner will potentially do the national games in China next year,” Sarah explained, “but we’ll keep him at small tour. He probably could do grand prix, but he’s happy at small tour, and he’s so good at it I wouldn’t want to push him out of his comfort zone.
“So she’ll continue to learn on him and gain more experience, but hopefully I might be able to steal the ride from time to time!”
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Oscar joined Horse & Hound in October 2023 and is the magazine’s dressage editor and sports manager, overseeing coverage of equestrian sport. After studying equine science at Myerscough College, he spent four years working for leading dressage rider Emile Faurie, competing at the 2015 National Dressage Championships and travelling with the yard to CDIs including Aachen and Saumur. He holds a master’s degree in Literature from York St John University (2021).
