When you can’t do the thing you love the most, sometimes you discover, upon reflection, that the things you really miss aren’t the obvious ones. Sure, we’d all love to go cross-country, the beep of our watches chasing us across the course. Okay, yes, we’d all love to march up to the organisers’ tent, muddy and knackered, to collect a scrap of ribbon and a dressage sheet. But actually, it’s the intricacies of the thing that tend to hit the hardest: that post-cross country burger that tastes so damn good because you’ve earned it, the moments of chit-chat while you wait to enter the start box and, of course, the thrill of arriving first thing in the morning and seeing the friendly faces of your eventing pals.
As it turns out, Heidi Woodhead of DHI Event Horses feels much the same way – so she decided to overcome her withdrawals by heading out in the lorry to park up in a field. But as it turned out, it wouldn’t be quite so straightforward…
