Well we did it, we made it to Lavenham and we had not only a great time but a very successful time!
Estrid got off the trailer a sweaty shaking mess….no idea why, she usually travels well and we had a very straight forward very relaxed journey along straight roads. Nevertheless she settled well into her corral, ate and drank, and also had a good mooch around the vetting without being a drama llama.
My ride plan for our 80km CER was to be going above 16kph but no faster than 8kph, taking into account I though she’d take about 8-12mins to present at the vet gates. Safe to say we nailed the plan with an average ride speed of 16.86kph. If I’m being picku our second loop could have been a bit slower, it was 17.09kph and our third loop could have been a little faster (16.61kph) as I prefer a negative split. But I think our speeds were consistent enough that it’s not too bad.
There were two big surprises of the day. Firstly Estrid’s vet gate presentation times were consistently around the 5 minute mark, a dramatic improvement from last year. Secondly, Estrid led a horse around almost the entire 80km. Estrid used to just stop or be very wary and stuck in the mud if there was ever a horse close behind her, so I would opt to part ways with anyone we came across so we could get into a rhythm. There were moments where she wasn’t quite sure and she’s still definitely more forward by herself but I was so impressed that we had a nice ride with Jenny and her stallion, Jasper.
Jenny and I discussed the finish and we opted not to do a racing finish, but as Estrid had taken the lead for the majority of the route I have a sneaky suspicion Jenny may have held back by a nose to let Estrid take the win. The best part of the whole thing was behing awarded Best Condition. Estrid was certainly a little tired towards the end of the last loop, more mentally than physically but the later that evening and the next day she trotted up with as much enthusiasm as she had the morning of the race.
I’m really glad I opted to do an 80km CER rather than go straight to a 100km 1*, as I now feel really confident that we’ve got our vet gates down, I know what she’s like in bigger groups of horses and what kind of speeds to think about doing.
Beth Endurance 