Hannah Esberger-Shepherd

The best made plan?

Well the snow put paid to that, as the arena was 4 foot under snow turn out and training were off the schedule for Saturday, Sunday and Monday, no amount of snow moving helped!! One phone call to the organisers of the Willerby Regionals late and they were able to accommodate us a day early, so off we went on Tuesday.

I had planned to be there on foot to help Laura with Whispers in the Prelim, so I went ahead of the horses to work her in and Mum & Molly followed with the horses later. What a highlight to the week, Laura won the Prelim and her father Graham opened a huge bottle of Champagne!! The family deserved their success they have worked hard for.

Welkom was in the Elementary the following day, he was going super, until he had a paddy mid test!!

Vanita was early the next morning, he had been amazing working in the day before, and he felt just as good on Thursday. He was doing a wonderful test, and I was smiling inside thinking how good he felt, when he saw a dark patch on the ground, did a jig and carried on…another jig, and carried on…well I don’t know many people who could be thrilled with a test given away with errors, but we were. His way of going was inspiring and this time last year he would have thrown in the towel, but know he is trying so hard (he came 6th)

Later in the Elementary Music with Welkom, he wanted to do flying changes instead of simple and was annoyed he had to do them…we came 4th with 68.7 so we will be watching for the wild cards issued!!!!

The worst day followed on Friday, in torrential rain we had to go to Delphi who had 12 weeks left to carry her foal, and unfortunately she had aborted…I am very sad and upset, we will have to wait to hear what the autopsy shows, then pick ourselves up and try again.

Regards

Hannah