A season of false starts
the latest update from Hector Payne
What had felt like a quite an easy, dry winter is now feeling like the longest winter ever. The last few weeks of very persistent rain has put a bit of a hold on the start of our event season. With 20 horses in the yard it is becoming a serious juggling act of re-organising and re-planning where we are going to take them.
Luckily Dynasty, my top horse who is heading to Badminton in just over a months time, has managed to get two runs in at Poplar Park and Lincoln in the Open Intermediate where he managed steady double clears and finished in the top ten. This means that although he isn’t going to run in his first international of the year at Thorsby 4*, due to the very wet conditions, we are not too worried about it affecting his Badminton preparations. He will be off to the gallops instead to continue his fitness regime, which also includes weekly swimming. Dynasty heads to Burnham Market in a couple of weeks for his final run and hopefully some sunny Norfolk weather!
Sadly it has been a quiet start for the other horses with a number of their runs being rained off. We have been lucky to get some good cross-country schooling practice in at Tweseldown and some great training sessions with top coaches as part of the GB World Class programme, so we really feel like they’re ready to get going!
We did however have a few first timers out at Offchurch unaffiliated which was a positive experience for them, albeit a bit of stickability needed on occasion from me - it’s great to see how the young horses progress and mature, we’ve definitely got an exciting bunch for the future.
Hopefully we have had all our April showers in March and the weather will start to improve…roll on the start of actual Spring! Although it’s disappointing for myself, the team and the horse’s owners that we’re not getting out eventing, no one can control the weather and there’s always another week with horses!