Womble eating up the ground in Kentucky
So since I last wrote a lot has happened so I will do my best to give you the highlights and not bore you the gruesome details! In short as is always the case with horses, there have been lots of ups and downs in the roller coaster life of an event rider. I am going to focus this blog on Womble (Improvise) and Alfie (Shannondale Titan)and their trips to Rolex and Badminton – next month I will fill you in on the young and up and coming stars in the yard – but I’d be here until Christmas if I try and cover everything – but it gives you a sense of the life of an event rider and the scope of what is going on – and what my team have to juggle on a daily basis – and I’m not even a big yard, as I have a dozen eventers, there are many riders out there with twice as many horses in their string!
So back to what’s been going on………
I decided to run Womble at Weston Park which was a calculated risk as I felt he needed the run ahead of Rolex as he’d been a little rusty cross country at Burnham Market. To the horror of all involved we had a rather heart stopping moment as he decided to slither in to the first water at Weston going green on me which was very unlike him and to cut a long story short the next morning he wasn’t sound for the first time ever in his career! There were many long faces at Team Levett and Ali, Emily and Jenny swung in to action calling on all our experts to help diagnose and then fix Womble – we quickly discovered thankfully all he had done was pull a muscle in his shoulder but we didn’t know how long it would take to sort it out but thankfully with 48 hours of physio, spa, acupuncture and ice he was sound and able to travel to Rolex. A few quiet days in quarantine were actually pretty beneficial to him in terms of making a full recovery. The downside for me was that I wasn’t able to ride him and school him in to water to ensure he’d not lost his confidence – as I headed out to Rolex I was anxious that I’d not had a chance to get his feet wet!
Anyway we all made it to Rolex in one piece, Womble travelled well and I was reassured that he had Emily with him every step of the way to ensure he had a familiar face and friend and someone able to maintain as much normality as possible for him and give him plenty of devotion! All the UK based horses travelled well and everyone worked as a team to ensure it was a good trip out for all.
Womble settled well in Kentucky and after the first call from Emily I knew he was OK as he was back to his usual Gonk self towing Emily rudely around the horse park!
I LOVED Rolex from start to finish it is an amazing venue, the whole team at Rolex couldn’t do enough to help us and the whole experience was just so special and I was so grateful to have had the opportunity to go – I am completely indebted to Womble’s owner for making it all possible – ironically she couldn’t make it at the last minute but she was still game to enable us to go and thankfully with the great USEF coverage she was able to follow along on the computer with the TV coverage on line.
There were lots of positives to take from the experience with the best work Womble has ever done outside of the arena for example in the dressage phase. We just sadly didn’t quite recreate it in our test and a blip in the first medium trot got him unsettled, he did recover from it but it cost us marks for the first third of the test and left us just outside the top 10 after dressage. The main arena at Kentucky has a huge atmosphere which was a great experience for Womble as I felt it had more atmosphere than Burghley in many ways for example so was good in terms of his development and experience overall.
On the cross country Womble was a legend and I had no worries once the first water was behind us; if you watch the video you will see my elbows going and reins everywhere as I throw myself and Womble in to the first water – Mrs Butler’s verbal commentary watching at the start/finish could be heard across the Horse Park, we all relaxed post that fence! The rain came down, the course was tough and the terrain not flat so it was a true cross country test – others who had been before said it had been beefed up – I felt it was a true four star test and I loved every minute of riding around the track, just what I wanted. Womble was brilliant and I felt I gave him a good ride, and we came home clear and inside the time. He pulled up brilliantly on Saturday night and flew thru the trot up the next morning. He is such a tough little fella.
Sunday morning I gave him a little jump to loosen off his muscles after the trot up and we sadly had a little miscommunication with a pole and the crew on the ground and ended up having a horse fall for both Womble and I over a 90cm oxer, oh dear oh dear– it felt and looked nasty for about 30 seconds but thankfully we both walked away from it shaken but ok. However it wasn’t the preparation we needed for the afternoon. I believe horses only have so many jumps in them after running flat out around a four star cross country 24 hours before. So our show jumping was a disappointment BUT we still achieved a top 10 finish, making it three top 10 finishes for Womble at three different four stars.
Lots of positives to take from the event Womble travelled home as well as he’d travelled out and was almost back before us thanks to Peden’s organisational skills! He has come out of it in fine form, so will now head to Burghley - he’s already back hacking out after a holiday in the field as after a few weeks he was bored and doing hand stands in the paddock. We will event him lightly and instead focus on show jumping and dressage before Burghley as his cross country is solid and we want to focus on big goals with him.
It was a mad rush to the airport after the show jumping at Rolex to get back for team training on Tuesday and Wednesday ahead of Badminton and also an opportunity to get input with many of the other horses on the yard as the team training took place at our place on the first day which was a great bonus for us. Having taken a tumble on the Sunday morning Jenny drew the short straw sitting next to me on the plane as I groaned and moaned my way home – but we survived the trip and following 24 hours before collapsing in to bed ahead of two days of team training.
Before Rolex while Womble was kicking back in quarantine with Emily, Poppy and I made the trip to Belton with Alfie and most of the rest of the yard over the course of the three days the event ran– all the horses went brilliantly and I was very pleased with them all. Alfie was having his last prep run before Badminton. It couldn’t have gone better Alfie was a complete star we had our best ever dressage test together scoring in the mid 30s from memory – he was with me from start to finish and the test felt effortless to ride he was early to go but stayed at the head of affairs throughout the event. We rolled a pole in the show jumping which was annoying but he jumped very well and then we had a great cross country round to finish second in a class of over 100 horses in the CIC three star so almost the perfect preparation for Badminton.
It' s almost worse to go in to a big competition with everything going swimmingly. Compared to the prep I’d had with Womble everything felt almost to good to be true with Alfie and it was hard not to pile the pressure on myself as I wanted and felt I could deliver a top 5 placing with Alfie. To cut a long story short we just didn’t quite get there – there were lots and lots and lots of positives to take away but I still came home gutted - although with a little time I’m feeling better about it all, honest! and can be more balanced about it all or so I keep telling myself.
There has been much comment on the dressage marking at Badminton post the event, from some feeling Friday was too generously marked, to others saying that the range of marks weren’t used widely enough, to that we should have a judging panel – whatever the solution dressage will always be subjective and we riders will always want more marks! For me Alfie was a legend in his walk and trot work in particular and I felt we could have had a few more marks, and those wiser than me agreed!! However the canter had too many mistakes and we didn’t deliver in the canter work – I think after much discussion with Gareth (who I train with) we think he just got tense and that this made him tight in the canter work and so we lost the flow. More tweaking for next time – and hopefully next time we will be able to produce the Belton quality of work in a four star atmosphere.
The cross country ground at Badminton was perfect this year which I was thrilled about as poor Alfie had probably the two toughest four stars on record ground wise last year with Badminton 2014 and WEG and so we all felt he deserved a four star run on good ground. However the track was not of the same order as 2014 – for me given the horse I was on I would have liked 2014 course and 2015 ground as Alfie is a cross country legend in terms of being genuine on a line with huge scope and length of stride and so the tougher the track technically the better it is for us. So for me on the horse I was on it was not quite the course I would have wanted, it was a clever course design wise in my opinion with subtle questions that needed respecting in terms of positioning of fences and lines, but having ridden both Rolex and Badminton I felt this year Rolex was the tougher track physically and technically.
Alfie and I on our way to the Start Box at Badminton
Alfie went brilliantly cross country and could have galloped another couple of minutes in the rhythm he was in, he recovered very well in the wash down area – he always gallops with his ears flopping sideways so people think he’s tired but he’s honestly not he’s just the expression he has on his face! I was thrilled with him and how he went and was only cross with myself for not going out more quickly in the first half of the track – but that’s always a brave call to make and often foolish as its important to be sure you have fuel in the tank for the back end of any track.
Alfie recovered well and trotted up well on Sunday morning we were lucky enough to show jump in the afternoon session – I felt the track was fair but square and up to height and there weren’t many clears when I went in – Alfie gave me a peach of a ride and the long and the short of it is he was jumping a clear round and I missed and caused him to have two fences which I was gutted about as it was a school boy mistake. I am so cross with myself as the horse deserved for me to ride him better. I just hope we will have our day at some point.
We still finished 18th overall and secured our Olympic qualification (as has Womble) so there is lots and lots to be positive about. I have two horses back in the paddock in one piece and both will aim for four stars in the autumn most likely Pau for Alfie and Burghley for Womble so I remain a very lucky person with two lovely horses to ride and a great team to work with and ride for.
The merry go round doesn’t stop and while Alfie and Womble are kicking back I am pressing on with the other lovely horses I’m lucky to be riding and producing – I have a fantastic team of horses and am a very lucky lucky man – so there’s no time (or reason) to wallow in self pity as that just wouldn’t be right.
Cheers,
Bill
