Beth’s Blog Part 2

If you missed it, read part 1 here. 

Thursday

We had another vet inspection day, so the horses all had the day off exercise to keep them fresh for the 3 days of jumping. The inspection was the same procedure as the week before and they all passed with flying colours again.

Friday

Back to competing! We were in the last class in the main arena today. Dora again was feeling fresh and on form. It was the usual first day speed class today. Dora warmed up well and the course looked to suit her. I set off like I meant it… as always, keeping her moving forwards and turning back as tight as possible to save time. I went down the related distance across the middle of the area and I was slightly off the fence and asked her to go on the longer stride, I’m not entirely sure what happened all I know is that she miss judged the fence and she paddled through it firing me at some speed over her head onto my head… great! 

I was extremely concussed and everything, even now is a bit of a blur, Dora was fine and continued to jump the next fence without me before she was then caught!

Saturday

This morning I wasn’t very well, I had a really bad headache and was extremely light headed from the minute I woke up! I took some painkillers and hoped the pain would pass. Today I had the derby which I was most looking forward to from the minute I arrived at the show. Although the headache didn’t seem to be budging but I was going to jump whatever the case! However, I didn’t expect to run into our neighbour’s lorry pop out and split my head open, right across my forehead… I said I wasn’t feeling very on the ball!

I sat for an hour with compressions and ice packs on my head to stop the bleeding and get the swelling down enough to get my hat on! Everyone said I should still jump the derby, I knew Dora would look after me so I thought it would be ok!

There were no clears and I was 2nd from last to go. Both of us were jumping really well and were clear up to fence 15, when things then went downhill… I can’t really remember what happened when I came out the woods but everyone was shouting at me to stop; I went very white and floppy but my lovely horse just kept taking me round! I came out and had the paramedics assess me where they said, as we thought… I was extremely concussed! They think the transition from light to dark to light (in the woods in the derby) triggered me to lose my balance etc. I was taken back to the lorry where I had to stay in the cold for the rest of the day/night!

Sunday

I was feeling loads better, my hat was still very tight over my lump but I was back to my bubbly chatty self. Dora was quite tired and lethargic today but it was our last day, all I wanted was a nice round that I could actually REMEMBER to finish the trip. That is exactly what she gave me, a lovely round! She was just seriously unlucky and the last fence fell, she literally only toed it…. but that’s showjumping for you… some you can hit and they stay and some you can just rub and they will fall! My confidence was back at the top again so I couldn’t ask for more.

Home time- Sunday evening 

Home time, there was a lot of packing to do but as we have such a fantastic team it was extremely easy and quite quick! The horses were then loaded and it was another evening of night driving as we pulled out the gates at 8:30pm. Nicky’s job on the way home was to keep Laura awake and be DJ so I could sleep… RESULT!

So all in all it was a show full of highs and lows for me and I was disappointed with my last week, however, I keep thinking that the first week was more than I could have ever imagined and Dora jumped amazing every day so actually could I ask much more than that?!