Caitlin Radford reports from Dressage Festival 2014

Boy and I competed in the EA Show Horse and Rider Nationals the weekend before Dressage Festival. This was a great warm up for Boy and I as this gave us the opportunity to ride in the indoor with a large crowd and loud music. Although we did not place in this event Boy’s performance was faultless and a big confidence builder for me as I had two tests in there for the DF.

My friend Lucy Davis travelled with us and she was amazing and so helpful. On the Tuesday we all worked very hard with the DF organisers to set up the indoor arena, judge’s areas and plants and do up rider and volunteer bags.

Fortunately the weather was better than last week’s wet and windy weather. My Para Grade IV Team and Freestyle tests were in the Indoor and the Individual test was in Arena 5. Boy and I completed 3 great tests scoring 63.334% in the Team Test, 64.108 in the Individual Test and 66.00% for my Freestyle test. The Para Grade IV tests are similar to Medium tests. Boy and I had a crack at our flying changes.

It was great to catch up with many Para riders that we met at Nationals in Sydney and also some other Para riders.

We are now having a couple of weeks off to allow Boy to recover from two big trips. Training will start again soon with lessons with Heath Ryan, both North and North West DAT comps, Susan Elekessy Clinic and then back on the Spirit to compete in our first International Competition at the Boneo Classic. This is also the first selection event for Rio.

The hunt has also started for a larger, younger mount as at nearly 19 we don’t want too many more trips for Boy. This super pony has taught me so much and we will keep him and compete in Tassie with him.