All dressed up for Carnival in Barocca - our first win of the year (even if it was just for fancy dress!)
First I'd like to apologise for my lengthy gap in writing... I'm useless! Second I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year and are now ready for the 2014 eventing season. I know I am!
Last season had some incredible moments for me. My first selection on to a Senior Championship team, great results at 3* with Ziomf and representing Holland at the WEG test event with Anmarsch. All very exciting.
I was absolutely devastated that the European Championships at Malmo didn't go as planned. Ziomf felt in the form of her life in the run up to Malmo and confirmed this by pulling off a personal best in the dressage by 8 marks - I was over the moon! She has never been the easiest in this phase, but I have always believed she could do it. So to have her confirm this at the Europeans was incredible. Sadly my week didn't continue like that! A mistake at the owl hole at fence 12 resulted in me being unseated and Ziomf heading to the Swedish coastline solo. I felt awful for the team, who were left with only three riders and also for Ziomf. She is a phenomenal jumper and I feel I slightly over rode the fence. That's life! I won’t be making the same mistake twice.
Boekelo was my last big event of the season. Ziomf was re-routed here and felt great until we started to compete and it was obvious something wasn't right - I retired and blood tests showed a nasty virus! Meepswood Conquestor was also due to finish his season there, but a tiny problem with a nail bind meant he was 99.99% and I made the tough decision to withdraw him before the first trot up. A rubbish end to the season!! Both horses feel incredible now and I'm so excited about getting back out there with them! I plan to start my season at Aldon which is next weekend. Anmarsch will also be going there.
This has been an exceptionally busy winter for me. Normally we have a slightly quieter time running up to Christmas, but this year we had so many babies in that needed bringing on. Between me and Janou (my sister) we still had about 20 horses in work! We have now been rewarded with all of these young ponies looking super and very exciting for the future.
Although it has been busy, it’s not been all work and no play! In November I was lucky enough to be invited to my great friends Lindsay Pearce (now Traisnel) and Xavier Traisnel's wedding! I travelled over with a few other eventing friends and we were all there for the weekend. It was a beautiful wedding held near Nantes and we had a brilliant time! I caught the bouquet so the pressure is now on! I don't think I have ever laughed as much as I did over that weekend.
All dressed up again - this time for the wedding
We had a huge amount of family visiting over Christmas and New Year... our sister Katie came down for Christmas which was lovely. Katie is now working for the brilliant clothing company Selwood Equine which is great - but she sadly lives at the opposite end of the country! Great for us all to be together again. A group of Dutch family flew over to spend New Year with us and we danced to some great Dutch music until the small hours!
I had another taste of the brilliant Dutch hospitality when I travelled over to Jumping Amsterdam in January. I was invited to go there for the Rabotalent of the Year prize giving. Being a part of the Rabotalent team for the last year has been great, and being able to be at a World Cup show for both Dressage and Jumping was a brilliant experience. They sure know how to make these things work in Holland! It would be fair to say that I had a great time and was a regular at the famous Café Bolle Jan in the evening! The famous Amsterdam Café brings its own "portable" bar to the show.. like being in the centre of Amsterdam at a horse show!
My final mini break of the winter was to Portugal. I absolutely love the country, but the fantastic event Barroca, holds a special place in my heart. My lovely family decided to buy me flights over there for my birthday. I met my great friends Anna Hasso, Camilla and Martina in Lisbon and we had a brilliant weekend. The Lupi family who run the event do it so well and are so friendly, it’s a pleasure to be there. We managed to watch all of the XC and SJ for the 1*, 2* and pre novice which made us all wish we were riding! On the Monday we ventured into the local town to buy some fancy dress outfits for that evening’s Carnival. It was absolutely hilarious! Fraser Duffy, Francisco (or Kiko) Stilwell and Mark Swan came with us and we picked some great outfits! Kiko and I decided to go as a pair - I was the Queen of Hearts and he was a Joker. Amazingly we won the fancy dress competition! So you could say I've had my first win of the season!
That's all for now! Sadly I think my next blog may be much more serious!
Alfie X
