New York, New York!!
When I left the UK I had envisioned that I would take a month or so off to relax and catch up with family and friends then figure out what I wanted to do and find some work, a nice horse to play with and get life back on track. This isn’t exactly how the last few months have gone.
After flying out of Heathrow at the end of December, I enjoyed 5 nights in Manhattan, New York before starting the 30 hours of travel home to Melbourne. I arrived home on the 29th December, a couple of days before a massive catch up with people at Rob and Cassie Palm’s wedding. This was an amazing night which also included celebrating the arrival of the New Year. Between now and then I haven’t really had a lot of time off, I was straight into work, helping Rob and Cass out looking after their place while they enjoyed their honeymoon.
I then spent a few days working in Geelong for good friends Nick and Karminda Roe and also part time work at Marcus Oldham College.
Rob and Cassie's wedding
Soon I found myself at the fabulous Wallaby Hill for 10 days helping out the crew for the one day event and for the week following the event and then called SIEC home for a week looking after Tim Boland’s team of top 2* and 3* horses for the National Squad Camp and Sydney Eventing midweek and weekend events
Then I was back on familiar territory at Bimbadeen Park for a week trying to keep up with the large amount of pre-trainers and breakers on the property before heading back to Geelong at Nick and Karminda’s property looking after a large variety of farm animals including racehorses, cows with calves at foot and pigs and piglets. Nick had around 12 racehorses for me to work that varied from breakers to just off race fit horses, I was travelling into the Geelong racetrack a couple of times a week to gallop and swim a couple.
I also enjoyed some time back in the saddle schooling a few young horses; by now it was late March and it felt like I had been busy without a lot of time to relax but it was also time to settle and get full time permanent work.
Some animals are just pigs - these most certainly were!
After a lengthy decision process I found myself driving north direction up the Hume highway again. I was once again headed to Bimbadeen Park, the home of Shane and Niki Rose. Bimbadeen is where I spent 6 years working before heading to the UK. Since I was last here there are certainly some changes, new staff, new stables, new accommodation, new horses, and also a new child!
I have come back at a pretty good time and spent the first weekend with 5 horses at the Equestriad event at Camden, one of the biggest events in NSW which Shane and Niki have a major part in running. We had just 5 horses there and managed a mixed weekend with Shane getting spat out the front door cross country on a 2* horse, right in the middle of the main arena in front of everyone. Fortunately he was able to take out the biggest class the CIC*** on Virgil to end the weekend on a good note.
Two weeks later we found ourselves at Sydney Three Day Event with Shane entered in the CCI2* on Purbeck Diesel and Niki and Lauren entered in the CIC classes. Diesel did a good test with a few small mistakes to lead the class. After living in England for two years I thought I had got used to the rain and mud but it appears that you never seem to enjoy it and slopping around SIEC was not a highlight of the weekend.
The cross country course was the wettest most people have ever seen it, Niki decided to save her horses for another day. Diesel found the going pretty tough but tried really hard, coming over the optimum time but was still the second fastest time of the day. He dropped to second place and this is where he finished the weekend.
After Sydney the weather started to improve just in time for the Oceania Teams to arrive at Bimbadeen for the squad camp before flying out on the Monday night. Both the young rider and seniors teams had dressage and jumping lessons on the property.
We all went to Hermitage Thoroughbreds for a final gallop on the Sunday and we were not only spoilt by the lovely facilities but also a late lunch consisting of their own home made beef sausages and fresh salads. At this time there were approx. 70 racehorses in work, consisting of mainly breakers. The stables and yards were full and Shane and the team of guys who work here and good friends were working long hours to try to finish the newest stable block for the team horses to be housed for the week, the stables were literally having horses put in them as the last screw went into the rubber walls.
We flew out on the Monday night with the horses a few hours behind. The flight was short enough but we had a long night ahead. We arrived in Auckland around 11pm and with the horses not arriving until 3.30 we had a tour of the airport and a midnight tour of Auckland before watching the horse unload off the plane and onto the transport truck for the 4 hour drive to Taupo.
The weather was cold and miserable but the horses were happy to have a leg stretch and a pick of grass. Darcy arrived happy, healthy and ready to have a long sleep. Darcy is a little precious and did not like the wood chip bedding they use in NZ so after some searching we found some fresh shavings and he was loving life sleeping on a nice fresh fluffy bed.
The precious Darcy and I Photo courtesy Jenelle Christopher
We had a great weekend with Shane and Darcy performing their best taking out the CCI class and along with Katja Weimann, Isabel English and Jess Manson the Aussie team took out the senior championship, beating the Kiwis.
It is always exciting being involved at the highest level of the sport, you never stop learning from riders, other grooms, team management, coaches and the veterinary team. This trip was great, another group of people and another country travelled to with horses. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel with the horses home on the flight. They were all well behaved and were quite relieved to hit the warmer weather in Sydney.
Winners in Kiwi land - Shane and Darcy (CP Qualified)
Three weeks after the trip to Kiwi land we headed to Melbourne Three Day minus one 3 star horse and rider combination after Shane had a rather unfortunate incident with a horse at home. So it was a girls' week away and I had Niki’s 1* horse Glenorchy Southpark to look after. Niki had a good solid performance finishing on their dressage score in 4th place. It was another cold and miserable weekend and I was thinking I can’t remember the last first day trot up I have been to where we haven’t been rained on.
After Melbourne we have had a bit of a break from eventers but are still pretty flat out with racehorses, the stables and yards are full enough and with breaker season now quietening down the horses that where broken in here in earlier in the year are coming back for their second preparation and spending a few weeks pre-training here before heading into their trainers.
The second half of the year has come around far too quickly, with many events to attend this year the main focus in now on Adelaide in November.
