Fresh off an 11th place finish at Blenheim, Rebecca Howard checks in about settling in to her new British lifestyle. While she didn’t make it around the Olympic course, it seems she’ll get over most of the jumps before too long! Thanks for writing, Rebecca, and thank you for reading.
————-
Rupert and his turnout buddy, Esib Powers' September Bliss
From Rebecca:
After a summer surrounded by dear friends and great people, the post-Burghley departures commenced. The goodbyes were difficult, but thankfully things occurred in stages. Forced to farewell Alison and Sinead, Rupert and I still had Irish Sarah and Bettina as part of a Maizey squad at Blenheim.
A week that started with Rupert not feeling the best ended rather well. We all know that expecting things to follow a predictable plan in this sport is an absurd concept – hence “making the best out of what ya got” continues to be an essential skill – and one I got to put into good practice for Blenheim.
It was clearly important for me to go rock my next major competition. However wanting it will never be enough for any endeavor, but I was feeling well prepared with a good month of reflecting and riding behind me. Via Jackie Green – I connected with team New Zealanders Tim Price and Jonelle Richards just down the road from Maizey, providing solid time in the saddle both schooling and competing.
Part of the full English Eventing experience at Blenheim lay in the lorry park for me. Having taken on the winter care and feeding of Will’s (Nat’s) Lorry – I joined the Blenheim park scene. Mornings started with announcement that “the milk man and newspapers have arrived” – which clearly is a British necessity.
Leading up to the competition, Rupert was dealing with a sore neck “not wanting to play” on dressage day but he went onto otherwise deliver – adding nothing to his score. Cross country proved to alter the score board a great deal, so a clean fast run did much to improve our situation. Rupert only felt better each day, and by show jumping day was fairly close to his normal self- jumping a good clear. This horse certainly jumps –regardless of what else he might be feeling, he tried his heart out over every fence. I am so lucky and grateful for this pony.
He came out of the weekend very well – with the run taking little out of him. Rup is now enjoying the holiday that I have been promising him in the English country side!
As for me, it is hard to not feel “behind” in the sport here with opportunity to go eventing most days of the week – the good guys are all out there more days than not. It is interesting I am (almost!) as fascinated by the one-days as the three-days. I knew the competition would be impressive at the Burghleys and the Blenheims, but the availability of one-days to produce the horses and the opportunity to compete against the Williams, Marks, and Andrews on any given day is what is the most impressive.
That and the Castles – not used to them!
And as always, plan adjustably must continue. Many of the cross country jumps from the Olympic Games can now be found at various event sites throughout the British Eventing network. Since the Games, I have managed to jump four of the jumps I did not make it to during the Olympic course – hence I plan that by this time next year I will indeed complete that Games course! Stay tuned….
-Rebecca
