Alice Oppenheimer

Happy New Year

December ended up being a very quiet month. The weather was largely the cause to this, due to the snow and freezing temperatures all of the training sessions that I had booked were cancelled. Firstly, my regional foundation squad training was cancelled, which I was really disappointed about as I was planning to take Wiz (Wurlizer) to see how much of the Grand Prix work I could get done away from home. I also really enjoy the sessions on the mechanical horse, but I’m looking forward to my session in January instead. My Equine Pathway training session with Del (Headmore Delegate) was also cancelled due to the weather, but we would not have been able to get our lorry out even if it was going ahead!

December is always fairly busy, though not with the horses! We started with a trip to Olympia. We went on the Wednesday evening to watch the Dressage world cup qualifier. The dressage was fantastic and Adelinde Cornelisson and Parzival were amazing and I loved their music. It was a shame that Laura B’s horse found the atmosphere a bit much, but he still looked super. Mum and I also went on the Sunday afternoon for the Show Jumping world cup qualifier and it was the most amazing class I have ever seen. It was thrilling and a superb class to watch, Michael Whitaker was masterful, I could watch top class show jumping like that all day long.

The week after Olympia was Christmas week. We had a good Christmas and, as usual, the horses came first. On Christmas morning all of my horses got their Christmas carrots, not that they know that it’s any different to a normal day, and Wiz, Del and Bracks all had a present of a new rug as well! We had a lovely family meal with a few friends in the evening, where we all ate too much, and had a few drinks as well!

We also had the turn of the New Year to celebrate. I went to my best friend’s pub for New Year but I didn’t drink anything as I had to be home in the morning to do the horses as most of the staff wanted the day off... not that I can blame them!

Well, fingers crossed for 2011 and let’s hope that it’s onwards and upwards!

Alice