Alice Oppenheimer

Busy with Parties

We have been fairly busy throughout April taking lots of horses out to different parties!

We started off by taking a couple of young horses out for their first show of the year to Pacesham EC for a Shearwater Potential International Dressage Horse Qualifier. The first one was Robin (Headmore Dirubinio) our 4 year old stallion by Dimaggio and out of Rubinsteena (Rubinstein/ Donnerhall). It was his first show and he is still quite green but he was absolutely fantastic. He is such a head turner and it was amazing how many people had to stop to look at him! We are very proud and think he is the best horse we have bred and were thrilled that he won and has already qualified for the Nationals in September at his first outing!

I also took Mischief (Tantoni White Mischief) out for the first time since she returned to us at Headmore. She is now owned by Becky Hulme and has been with her over the winter but I now have her back for the season. I was thrilled with how she went; she just needs to strengthen up a bit now as she looked like a little 4 year old in amongst all of the 5 year olds! She still finished 6th in a big class however, and she will continue to get better and better! All in all a good young horse outing!

The following week after all of our preparation, we left for the Winter Championships at Hartpury hoping for a couple of good results. We had unfortunately had to withdraw Roxy (Headmore Roxanne) from the medium open championship as she was suffering from a tooth abscess and then had an adverse reaction to the antibiotics she was given, so it was just down to Bracks (Headmore Boadicia).
We arrived on the Thursday evening and settled Bracks into her stable following the vet check. We had the PSG freestyle championship on the Friday evening and I wasn’t competing until 21.55 so it meant we had all day to chill and shop. It also meant I was able to do an interview with H & C’s Jenny Rudall in our horsebox, which was a good laugh as always. Make sure you all check it out! I also got to watch the first half of the class and John and Char Lasseter’s hilarious display. It doesn’t matter how many times you see two pantomime horses doing dressage, it is still hysterical!

Bracks was looking very beautiful for her gala evening performance but, unfortunately, she was a bit tricky to warm up and then we had a bit of a miscommunication in a canter pirouette. This proved very costly as we dropped out of the placings but on our other marks we would have finished top 3. Mum and I were unsure of why we had had the mistake, but after discussing it with Charlotte Dujardin (who trains me and saw the class) we thought that she was in season and mares always have stronger seasons at this time of year which would explain why she was a bit tricky as she is not normally a hormonal mare.

We were hoping that she would be better in the advanced medium the following day as we weren’t sure when she had come into season, but unfortunately she seemed even worse which led to loads of mistakes in the test. It is very unlike Bracks to be like that and it was very unfortunate timing but that is mares after all! Next year we will put all of our mares on regumate at the beginning of Spring for their worst seasons as all of us girls know what it is like! I think Bracks just wanted to curl up with a duvet and a bar of chocolate!

After our disappointing trip to the Winter Championships, we were hoping to really be able to get stuck into qualifying everyone for their relevant summer championships. Unfortunately a rather sizeable spanner was thrown into the works as I got my leg squashed when the biggest horse on the yard shot forward and squashed my leg between him and the wall of the school. Following a few x-rays and plenty of frozen peas I was just about able to get back in the saddle a few days after. However, this meant that we missed our trip to Oldencraig with Tantoni Sir Socrates (Socs) and Headmore Delegate (Del) so we had to go to Keysoe Premier League a bit cold!

It was still very much up in the air as to whether we would be able to make it to Keysoe with my leg and all week it was changing from taking all four that we had entered (Socs, Del, Bracks and Mischief) to not going at all. Eventually we settled on withdrawing the two advanced horse, Bracks and Del, and just taking the two young horses, Socs and Mischief, as the tests were a lot easier.
We eventually left on Friday lunchtime, although I was still slightly apprehensive that it may be a bit ambitious! We thought we had left plenty of time but the traffic was horrendous, so when we arrived at Keysoe it was a bit of a mad rush to get Mischief ready for her potential international dressage horse class. Luckily we had just about enough time and I was thrilled with Mischief. She was much more confident but at times I had a bit too much energy which led to a few losses of balance in the test which proved to be expensive, but it was a vast improvement on Pacesham.

The following day was the national young horse qualifiers. Mischief was first to go in the 5 year old class and I was thrilled with her once again, she is really improving very fast! The judges still felt she was green for the test however, but they also commented that she had potential for the future when she is more established! She also had plenty of admirers from people watching as well, not only for her paces but also her very pretty face, she could be a model! It was then Socs’ turn in the 6 year olds and I was also thrilled with him. It was only the third test I had done on him and he felt really impressive. The judges also thought so too as he won the class with the highest mark they gave out of the five and six year olds, qualifying him for the final at Hickstead.

The final day was the International young horse qualifiers. Mischief was very tired after the previous two days so we withdrew her, but Socs was still full of running! He warmed up superbly, feeling better than the previous day so I was feeling very confident going into the ring. I was thrilled with the test as it is quite difficult including half passes and flying changes but Socs showed his class by completing a mistake free test. I was very disappointed when he scored less than the previous day and only finished 3rd, which was still good enough to qualify for the final, but I felt he was hard done by! Socs is now qualified for all of the six year old classes, so it was worth the trip with my dodgy leg!

We are gradually getting a bit organised now, so hopefully we will keep going the right way keep on top of all of the organsing!

Alice