Arriving home from Adelaide we had two weeks to recover, get the young horses back in work and prepare for the next event; Equitana and then Avenal HT. There was a very close call one morning, about 3 days after getting home from Adelaide. With the weather getting warmer and the 3DE behind us, I decided to stop stabling Zone at night. It was time for him to be a horse again!
This particular morning, I was running a little late getting my morning chores done before picking Ruby, my groom, up from the bus stop. I put Zone’s feed in his paddock and called him over but he didn’t come. At the time I thought it was because he was talking to the other horses over the fence, so seeing as I was running late I didn’t wait for him to come over, but rather drove off to collect Ruby. Returning to the Estate, I rode two horses and was about to get on the third when I thought that I still hadn’t seen Zone go to eat his breakfast, and that he mustn’t know it was there.
So I went over to his paddock, picked up his feed bin and called him over, but he just looked at me and didn’t come. So I walked over to him, and was mortified to discover that he was tangled and stuck in the fence. He had managed to somehow get one of his front legs over the bottom and middle wire, with the latter sitting up quite high, digging into his armpit. He stood perfectly still as I untangled him, and then, with barely a scratch on him, he quite happily followed me over to eat his breakfast. By this stage it was about 10.30am, and I had first seen him standing there at 6.30am – he could have been there for half the night for all I know – I can’t believe that he just stood there and waited for hours for me to rescue him. If he had of panicked like most horses do when stuck in a fence it could have been disastrous!
With that close call behind us, I was able to continue preparing for the Exhibition Eventing at Equitana. Being just two weeks after Adelaide, my preparation was mostly just hacking him out quietly to keep him ticking over. He was already fit enough, jumping well and all tuned up, so I didn’t want to overdo it after such a big event! Equitana was an amazing experience, and an atmosphere unlike any other I have ridden in before. The dressage was alright but we made a few mistakes that left us in 11th place. Luckily the dressage phase of exhibition eventing is not very influential at all, with it simply being used to seed the riders going into the jumping phase. The combined cross country and show jumping course proved to be very challenging, with many experienced combinations coming unstuck in the unusual format.
Zone however, was in his element; a jump off against the clock with cross jumps and show jumps. He was fantastic, jumping one of the fastest rounds of the day, being really honest over the tricky cross country lines and showing lots of air over the 1.40m Joker fence. Our efforts moved us all the way up to 3rd place! I am thrilled with this result which marks the end of what has been the most incredible season with Zone. He is now going to have a very well earnt month off! See our jumping round here: Three ladies took the top honours at this year’s Exhibition Eventing at Equitana Melbourne (Eventful Life Subscription required to view).
