When I was asked by the An Eventful Life team I was at Luhmuhlen 4-star having a few beers with my good friend and dressage trainer Scott McKenna debriefing an ‘exciting’ dressage test – well exciting for my horse anyway. We had a quick browse of other blogs and they appeared reminiscent of most eventing websites and facebook pages: this horse is doing that, that horse is doing this etc. After a few more pints of the tasty (or “lekker” – need to keep practising my Dutch) German beer, Scott and I came to the profound conclusion that I’d have to try and mix it up a bit to keep it interesting….. let’s see how I go over the coming months!
I achieved my goal of actually being able to run the first trot up at Luhmuhlen myself
Firstly, let’s get the two questions everyone’s been asking me outta the way:
1. Why change to Dutch nationality?
And 2. What went wrong at Luhmuhlen?
I could write essays on both (I am lawyer by profession and doing a PhD, don’t tempt me….). In addressing the former, I have a large extended Dutch family who I hardly know so I wanted to base in Holland to get to know them better, the Dutch eventing team were fantastic to deal with and having got to know their system just a little bit it is no surprise they are a team ‘on the rise’, they have access to world-class trainers, and they found me a great base with Elaine Pen in Voorschoten, Holland. The reality was that these advantages were too good to ignore when compared with going to the UK as a Kiwi (I wanted to move to Europe to train and compete at the highest level and they were the two most logical options).
Turning to the latter, a vet check post-Luhmuhlen revealed a throat infection, likely picked up during or after the long trip from New Zealand. That explains why after only two minutes of galloping he started feeling lethargic, he was so damn fit he should have been able to gallop twenty minutes! And like quick sand, the more we tried the worse it got – and we finally retired after our second refusal when my horse Nadal just didn’t have the energy to make the distance out of the Messmer water, halfway around the cross country. It was a strange decision to retire as that is the first time we’ve ever had to (we’ve only either been clear cross country or eliminated!); a strange mix of absolute determination to continue being trumped by concern for the welfare of Nadal – all within a few seconds. I hope to never have to repeat it!!
That was a long way to go to complete a poor dressage test and half a cross country but you never know how your horse is going to travel (it was 67 hours from NZ to Holland with only a 6 hour break in the UK during that time) until you actually go and do it with your horse. I asked anyone with experience when and how to travel to Europe, the general consensus being to arrive either a week or a month before as horses can go through ‘lows’ in between these times as they adjust to a different hemisphere. Nadal looked and felt fine throughout and I was optimistic he’d compete well, it was only when the pressure went on that he wasn’t 100% and that was enough to curtail our chances this time.
However, it is certainly not all doom and gloom! I made all of the final decisions in respect of Luhmuhlen and I wasn’t good enough this time, however I’m already looking forward to giving 4-star another crack!! I have learnt that Nadal has recovered from the trip after 3-4 weeks as he is back to full health and generally being a nuisance displaying all the flamboyance of a fully fit thoroughbred and ex-champion racehorse!! So if I ever do it again, I’ll go a couple of weeks earlier and arrive about a month beforehand. Conversely, my younger horse Will (show name Quantum Warrior) hasn’t missed a beat since landing in Holland and he just loves being a Dutch horse!! A little bit too much for my liking at this stage, however he has a couple of competitions at Hunxe, Germany (CIC1*) and Renswoude, Holland (CCI*) to regain his focus over the coming few weeks in July. As Nadal is feeling so well, I may well take him to do a short format two star at Renswoude as well.
Indoor school at the Pen's place
Before moving on from Luhmuhlen completely, I should pass on a few other important lessons I took from competing at my first four-star:
- It pays to go with someone who knows what they’re doing!! I definitely would have got lost a few times if I hadn’t been lucky enough to go to Luhmuhlen with fellow Dutch rider Tim Lips. The Lips family were so accommodating and Tim rode awesomely, so it was great to see from the inside how the pro’s do it!!
- The hospitality for riders and sponsors is excellent; and the riders’ parties are good fun with plenty of antics. For example, I embarked on a cunning mission with one newly-met and famous rider to obtain a few bottles of wine from behind the bar. My job was the decoy, their job was to sneak around the far side of the bar and uplift said wines. Unfortunately I didn’t quite comprehend that keeping three bar staff completely concentrated on me for 30 seconds (and they did not speak English) was quite a challenge. Despite my attempts to compliment the beer and discuss the building décor to people who didn’t understand, one bar staff’s attention wandered and the said rider was caught red-handed!! Fortunately with a bit of charm we were able to talk our way into getting the wine anyway.
- The standard of dressage was great, far and away the best eventing dressage I’ve seen in real-life. Also, I watched the top 10 show jump, most of whom rode and jumped very well.
- The standard of cross country is nothing to fear for successful three star riders who arelooking to have a crack at four star overseas. Luhmuhlen is by reputation one of the ‘easier’ four stars. I was not at all nervous about the cross country after walking the course, it was well within my horse (usually!!) and I thought it was a similar test to the Puhinui CCI3* we did in December.
- It was a big effort with my physiotherapist to beat my surgeon’s rehabilitation estimates in the lead-up to Luhmuhlen. I broke a few bones in my left foot in February after a nasty fall from a young horse, leaving me with eight new screws and a metal plate holding it all together. The surgeon estimated a six month recovery to normal usage, however I had a leading physiotherapist who is contracted to a Super Rugby team and knows a few tricks of the trade to speed up the healing process! All above board of course, but it meant intensive rehabilitation right up until we left for Germany. That was the one success of the trip, I achieved my goal of actually being able to run the first trot up at Luhmuhlen myself!!
My new home city: Leiden, Holland
Now Luhmuhlen is over, I have settled into Dutch life here in Voorschoten. There are so many things done differently with horses here than in NZ, I almost don’t know where to start. There is significantly different horse feed, turn-out, fields, horse-types, training philosophies, fitness programmes, and stabling from what I have experienced in NZ – and those are the things just off the top of my head!! However all horses here look well, are healthy and enjoy their lives and work. So it just goes to show, there’s so many ways to approach working with horses. I’m a working student here until the end of the season, being late October. So while it is very early days, my mornings mainly consist of helping out Helene (Elaine’s mother) and Sarah/Amy (other working students) prepare horses to ride and general stable duties. The afternoon is usually spent doing a few extras as well as riding my own two horses. I’ve been lucky enough to have a couple of lessons with Helene already and they have been great!! Helene was a Dutch dressage champion and clearly has encyclopaedic knowledge of horses, so I hope to learn as much as I can. However we’ve had a heat wave here in Holland the last few days, with temperatures reach around 30 degrees with high humidity, so a bit of a change from the NZ winter we left behind and I’ll have to re-clip the horses soon.
One story that may spike some interest was when I first arrived at the Pen’s, feeling fairly weary, I took the horses out for graze. The paddocks are separated by streams or small canals – with no fencing. Both of my horses seemed suitably nervous of the canals and were so eager to get moving they were almost impossible to deal with. I made the decision to let my younger horse, Will, go off the lead for a while as he was head down eating. I instantly regretted it. He trotted off towards a canal and got a fright as I tried to grab his rope, resulting in him walking right into the water up to his head in mud and water!! It took 20 minutes flailing about in the mud but I somehow managed to find a firm area and help him to get out. Apparently this happens every so often with new horses and usually the fire department needs to be called to get the horses out. Suffice to say my first impression on the Pen’s was less than ideal – dripping wet and covered with mud!!
Will and Nadal getting used to Dutch grass!
I’ve had some conversations with the Dutch eventing personnel about which events to aim for next with Nadal. I must confess I really want to have a go at Burghley! The main reason being that I am blessed to have a very fast horse across country and that is a significant factor at Burghley. However wiser and more experienced heads have talked sense into me and we are going to aim for Pau 4-star in late October. The idea being aiming for Pau provides more time to acclimatise and train than aiming for Burghley. That is exciting enough but there are also so many new and fun events to compete in the lead-up, so I’m really looking forward to getting amongst eventing Dutch-style! I do not foresee any conflict in being a Dutch-Kiwi – I’m fully Dutch except I can be a Kiwi only when the All Blacks and Black Caps are playing, fortunately the Dutch aren’t much chop at either of those sports so I don’t foresee any major conflicts or barroom brawls at this point. So hopefully next time I can post something of interest from our next European competition and adventures!
Cheers (or “Proost” in Dutch – and German as it turns out),
Fraser
