Postcards from the Saddle... Laura Wallace - Moving to the UK 101 - The Monsoon Season

Dan Cam: enjoying the sunshine on the gallops

Agatha - Bridget's little sister

Outdoor jumping arena

Blyth and "Thelma" ready to head off to dressage

The world's most over qualified bucket carrier? Blyth helping me at Aston le Walls (photo: Uptown Eventing)

Eventer Laura Wallace continues to share her adventures with us, from where she left off last time - about to leave Australia and follow her eventing dreams in the UK!

Read Laura's previous 'Postcard from the Saddle'

From Melbourne to Singapore to Dubai to Heathrow…

I read five books, listened to my entire iPod 4 times, tried to plan my season three times and then attempted to sleep in between.

Pete and Dan ate three kilos of carrots, two bales of hay, three packets of black jellybeans, and drank 85 litres of water.

When we turned up in Heathrow some 27 hours later I was whisked away in a white panel van to the main terminal where we somehow navigated through the arrivals hall into the back of British Immigration. Having spent weeks getting my visa, I was expecting slightly more interest than “Is your horse going to Badminton or Burghley?” before getting waved through.

Paul (O’Brien) was kind enough to brave the traffic and come and pick the horses and myself up from the airport, which was a luxury given it was rush hour. Apparently when they rang him to organize this it was stated “SHE has TWENTY bags”!!! Paul’s “yeah, right” reaction evidently wasn’t what they were looking for…

So the TWENTY bags of gear, and the two horses were duly loaded onto the truck (sorry – lorry) and off we went home to Gloucestershire.

Blyth and Paul are based at Lavender Hill Stud, home of Eddy Stibbe and Debbie Brookes, and probably the most beautiful equine property on the face of the planet.  Pete, for the first time in his 15 years, has decided that being stabled at night is actually quite acceptable. This is possibly because it has rained and I mean REALLY rained since pretty much the day I arrived. Maybe it’s me?

This rain has raised quite a few issues – ie. Every British Eventing event for the last 4 weeks, including Badminton, was cancelled which led to an outbreak of #fantasyeventing on Twitter. It started with #fantasyBadminton, and when it just kept raining, and events kept getting cancelled, it morphed into something entirely different.

So we went to a dressage show. Yes, a proper dressage show, in a proper dressage lorry (see picture of “Thelma”). Eddie took Parker – a dressage horse that is currently being reformed into an eventer by Blyth, I took Pete and Blyth took Splash, his 3* mare.  We all got drowned in our tails and top hats, the horses got water down their ears but in general we had a great time.  Following that, we resorted to indoor showjumping to keep ourselves from going completely bonkers.

However, at some point last week, the rain stopped temporarily and after abandoning 4 days at Aston Le Walls, and we got a good run thanks to the organisers very kindly putting on another day for the Intermediate classes. I took Pete for a run around the Open Intermediate as he hadn’t had a start for some time and hadn’t actually been cross country since December last year. Those of you who know Pete know that turning up an hour before he does his dressage test is not in his repertoire. Rather you turn up the day BEFORE and ride at LEAST twice before his test.

All things considered he coped very well and was fairly well behaved minus one moment where we had to walk AFTER we had cantered which proved a little too exciting for his brain. He jumped a lovely clear show jumping round with much enthusiasm and was fabulous cross country - except for his stupid rider who was feeling really rusty with the result that I failed to set up for a large double of hayracks at fence 6, missed at the first atrociously and he stopped. So after I had hit myself for riding like a muppet, and got my act together, we were pretty well foot perfect the rest of the way.

So onto Pontispool we go for another Open Intermediate run, hopefully without the muppet on board! Then we are off on a very exciting adventure to Ireland for Tattersalls CIC*** which is will be an amazing experience.

Dan has been having a fairly quiet time as he spent the first 3 weeks squawking whenever I took Pete away and then trying to buck me off at every given opportunity. However in the last fortnight he has found his brain again and has been working really well. We went off to indoor showjumping last week and jumped a couple of nice clear rounds followed up by cross country schooling at Lyneham Heath – which is a stunning course just down the road from us. He is due to have his first start at West Wilts in the BE90 in early June and then will go Pre Novice (BE100) shortly after.

Gus is turning up off the plane on at the end of May and I’m pretty excited to have my new orange pony join the team. His first start will be Milton Keynes at the end of June, where he will have an easy cruise around the BE100. Longer term I am hoping to take him to Haras du Pin CIC* in August and then go Intermediate.

Other news : I have a new truck – Agatha – that is my pride and joy, to cart the boys and myself around the country. She made her eventing debut at Aston, having previously belonged to a couple of dressage riders. My wonderful parents bought me a “Snooper”, a truck specific GPS when they were over and I am eternally grateful to them as I have so far managed to avoid any perilously narrow country lanes.  I also have a new job – at the Fox Inn, which is owned by a friend of Blyth’s. Apparently, describing oneself as a “bar wench” on Twitter is inappropriate so any suggestions for what I am to call my new position would be welcome.

As I have finished writing this, it has just started raining again so who knows what the next few weeks will bring. Hopefully some more seriously good English style eventing.

Until next time – as the English would say – keep calm and kick on.

Cheers,

Laura.

P.S. Blyth and Paul’s new addition to the family – Scrumpy – the world’s cutest and most photographed Jack Russell, deserves a photo and a mention because she is the best excuse to waste time!