Laura Barber’s Blog: Horse trials and honeymoons!

We caught up with Laura Barber and we think she might take the biscuit for busiest and most widely travelled month, amongst Team Horslyx! Find out where she has been and why, in this latest blog!

“Well we’ve certainly had a busy month since my last blog, which has involved plenty of training, another event and the small matter of flying to the other side of the world and back!”

“Both of my horses were incredibly pleased to receive their lovely goodies this month, and they can often be found with the tell-tale ‘Horslyx nose’ first thing in the morning so I know they’re being well used! I’ve been enjoying wearing my new clothes too, and even represented the team whilst climbing a volcano in New Zealand”

“Our last BE was at Swalcliffe, which is one of my favourite events and I’m pleased to report Tally behaved really well and tried very hard for me. I changed our dressage warm up tactics (transitions, transitions, transitions!) which resulted in a good forward test for 28. I was really pleased to follow this up with a double clear, with Tally jumping confidently in both phases. Swalcliffe worked really hard on their courses and they were presented beautifully at each level, with some decent questions for the time of year. The time was very difficult to achieve, so I was pleased to be just 8 seconds over – much quicker than our last time XC so maybe there’s hope for his racing career yet!! We finished in 7th place which is our first placing at BE100, and gave me lots of confidence about where we’re at in our preparations”

“After Swalcliffe it was time to leave the horses in the capable hands of my wonderful mum, friends and livery yard, and head off to New Zealand on our Honeymoon. We arrived into Auckland and collected our camper van; did a whistle stop tour around the North Island before making our way South on the ferry. We then travelled down along the famous West Coast to Queenstown before making our way back up through the Southern Alps finishing in Christchurch. For such a tiny country they have the most remarkable landscape, which contained a new adventure each day – we cruised with dolphins, flew over Milford Sound, climbed their largest volcano and clocked over 2,000 miles on some seriously interesting roads. Although I’m in no hurry to drive over another mountain, the scenery was simply stunning and every picture looks like a postcard – I would recommend the trip to anybody (if you can put up with 24 hours flying to get there!).”

“I’m pleased to report Tally was kept in full work by my amazing friends and instructor (and managed to behave!) so I’ve arrived home to him feeling very fit & well. With just 3 weeks to go until Badminton Grassroots the nerves are really starting to kick in, now we’re all entered and starting to make final plans. We have one more BE100 on Saturday at Ascott under Wychwood, which will hopefully be a good final run, and then it’ll be back home to the bubble wrap – keep your fingers crossed for us!!”