Cara Shardlow – Getting back on form

March ended up being a busier month than expected, I got my third call up for Great Britain!!!! This time at Keysoe CDI again at small tour level.

After some lovely warm weather it was a bit of a shock travelling down south and finding it about 10 degrees colder and very windy, I had to borrow stables drapes to shield Detonator from the wind in his stable. He passed the trot up on Thursday and so it was onto the PSG on the Friday, he warmed up quite well but unlike him he got into the competition arena and totally dropped off my aids making 3 big mistakes and so deservedly we got our worst score for a long time.

It was the kick up the bum I needed though, we have not really been on form since his brief spell off and it made me realise I needed to be much more on his case and it worked!!! The Inter 1 was mistake free and we got our highest international placing of 11th just .03% off our first international top ten.

This then put us in the top 15 to compete in the Kur on Sunday. I was quite pleased with the test just making one mistake in the 3 time changes, my score didn’t reflect how it felt unfortunately, but that’s dressage sometimes and to finish in 14th is still an achievement at that level for us.

It was a great competition and has got me back on track and focused for the winter Nationals next weekend where we will compete in the adv med freestyle at Hartpury. He also has Keysoe Premier league at the end of the month.

The two younger boys Sando and Mario had a trip out to Northallerton to gain some summer regional points. Unfortunately they both decided to get rather clingy whinnying for each other the whole time producing some tense tests but still managing to get a few points. I think Spring Fever has a lot to do with it and now they are out a bit more in the fields hopefully they will settle down again for Snainton next Thursday.

Promised Land had his 2nd trip out last Sat to an unaffiliated and was so well behaved even though it was a new venue to him and won the class on 71%, he will go affiliated very soon. I’m also enjoying jumping him at home, who knows I might even get back out eventing!!!

So a busy month ahead leading up to my 40th birthday at the beginning of May, not really something I want to celebrate!!