Amy - Petplan Equine Ambassador

It’s been all go with Championships! But it’s doneTico the world of good! As some people are aware, Tico has been a bit of a hot head at some of the bigger Championships. My last remaining worry was qualifying for the Summer National Dressage Championships as it’s the biggest atmosphere with the longest walk - Tico’s down fall. Secretly, when riding the Summer Regionals, my aim has been to do as well as possible without actually qualifying for the Nationals! Bad, I know! I seem to have manged this previously; in 2016 coming in 5th place with a decent score of 69.74% and then 2017 coming in 3rd place with 69.84% giving me a podium finish but just out of the qualification zone. I was happy, but the difference this year was controversial marking with two judges scoring me over 72% and one judge, 7% less. I actually felt a bit robbed as with just a few more marks from that judge, Tico could have won the class and a Regional title. In fact, this did me good as it made me want to have won the class and qualify for the Nationals so when the Wild Card came through I felt a bit of justice and I wanted to attend – even though I was terrified! I can’t lie; I worried from that moment on about how Tico would behave at the Nationals and if he would even fit in the temporary stabling!

At the Nationals Tico settled extremely well and didn’t seem to mind the tight squeeze! I had managed to get myself into a zone to deal with my fear, kind of a non-reactive state. It worked in terms of keeping Tico relaxed but it did rid my body of all reactions including the ones required to ride a test! I seemed happy just with the fact that Tico was behaving and didn’t ride competitively at all. I needed to influence the test with much more in terms of power, balance and accuracy. But, Tico was good so on one side I was super pleased but then you look back and think ‘why did I not ride’?! Although I didn’t beat myself up as we had overcome so many genuine demons that could have ended our career. As we left the National Dressage Championships I did vow we were done with the demons and it was now time to get competitive. Please feel free to remind me of this promise at any future Championships!

Next it was time for the Petplan Equine Area Festival Finals; we were really hoping to qualify for Hartpury for so many reasons. I was ready to give my ‘ride at the Championships’ promise a go and as a Petplan Equine Ambassador, it means the world to get through to these Finals and qualify for the Championships. The pressure was on!

Manor Grange Stud is a super venue run by lovely people. We all settled in well for a three night stay. First up was the Advanced Medium, still only having one good flying change, the game plan was to nail the good ones and do what we could with the not so good – this went to plan. Whoops, an extra flying change right in front of the judge at C! I reacted quickly to sort this before the next movement. Overall it was a good test with more work required on our dodgy change. A good score came in and we finished in second place and qualified for the Winter Dressage Championships at Hartpury! We were absolutely thrilled to have qualified and that was at the harder level which we are still working towards. Super happy and thrilled to bits!

The following day was competition free and my birthday so we visited the Wonkey Donkey Sanctuary next to Manor Grange Stud. The donkeys were super cute and very soft. It was lovely to see how happy the previously mistreated donkeys were.

After a rare relaxing day it was time to ride the Medium test. I knew we could do a good job of this one so really tried to be extremely accurate. The lateral work was lovely and we were rewarded well with the marks for this but the canter work was a little tight which I wasn’t expecting. As we rode into the medium canter Tico did another unrequired flying change. My heart sank, it was in such a costly place, by the time I had corrected the canter lead there was no room left for a medium canter. I knew everything else had to go well and that we could not make the same mistake the opposite way. The next medium canter was cautious and we finished the test unsure of how it went. It wasn’t the test we could produce so I wasn’t feeling hopeful. I was the first rider in so I had a long wait for the score 67.16%. I was happy with that given the canter not being supple enough and our very costly mistake. It was a long and painful wait whilst 23 more scores came up but finally it was confirmed; Tico had won the class! He was Petplan Equine Medium Finals Champion and it was clear he was tired when he stood beautifully for photographs in his sash! It was a late but happy drive home. It was only when I chatted to the Horse & Hound reporter about Tico that we realised he had qualified for the Petplan Equine Area Festival Championships every year and at every level, Novice to Advanced Medium. That is some going for any horse never mind one that’s gone through everything Tico has.

He is my horse of a lifetime, a dream come true (give or take a few evil faces and antics). I like to take the time to appreciate what he has done for me and I’m excited that he is still getting stronger and feeling better then ever. I will never push him beyond his capabilities but I am excited and daring to start to believe he might just be my first tailcoat horse. What an achievement and honour that would be!