The Journey to Badminton Part Three – 5 weeks to go

Image credit: Mane Focus Photography 

In this new blog series, we follow eventer Lauren and her pony Cookie on their journey to the LeMieux Badminton Grassroots Championships. With just 5 weeks to go, it’s time for Lauren and Cookie to up the ante and compete at an event.

I can’t quite believe it, but it’s time for my third blog and we’re five weeks out from Badminton now! This month we’ve really stepped up the training – Cookie is now doing weekly gallops (three lots of four-minute gallops and his recovery is quick!) and he’s feeling and looking super fit.

Despite being really excited and pleased with how our training has been going, this month hasn’t come without setbacks. Cookie feeling so well has come with its own challenges, and he became very strong to jump! We booked a very last-minute session at Tweseldown with my trainer, Amanda, to have a play around with some different bits and hopefully restore some control and confidence for me ahead of our first event of the season. It was definitely worthwhile, because a bit change completely softened his frame and over his back. I’m so glad we found something Cookie prefers, and we had a fantastic jump schooling session around the showjumps before heading out onto the BE100 flagged XC course. The ground was incredible – I was slightly nervous as we haven’t jumped round a BE100 for quite some time, but Cookie filled me with confidence and carried me round, quite literally jumping his socks off!

In fact it was such a good session that I emailed the event secretary at Munstead to ask whether I could switch my entry into the BE100 the following weekend, and they very kindly allowed to make the swap!

There were a few moments I thought maybe I shouldn’t have committed to the bigger class as I spent the first two weeks of March battling tonsillitis and a chest infection, but us equestrians have to battle on, right? Especially with the Badminton countdown forefront of my mind! Anyway, we did it – Cookie’s behaviour was impeccable from start to finish. He was just so content and happy to be there, and it really did make me grateful that we have managed to overcome so much over the years because he really does thrive on competition days.

Our day started with a 29 dressage. Cookie felt obedient and forward in the boards, which is usually one of our biggest challenges as he often would go inside the boards and switch off. so to have him willing to show off his best moves already felt like a winner as he gave me such a lovely ride!

Then onto show jumping. I was seriously nervous for this phase as I so desperately wanted to jump clear. I felt like I needed to for a confidence boost ahead of the rest of the season! Cookie was flying in the warm-up, I think if I pointed him to the moon he would’ve jumped it! In the ring we achieved that all important clear, so I was buzzing ahead of XC and had to get my concentration head back on to learn my minute markers and focus out on course.

Cookie, being a XC machine, was a superstar and absolutely loved being back out on course. He was so excited in the warm-up that I was surprised that he kept his cool leaving the start box! We had great fun around the XC and came back home inside the time, so our first event of the season we finished on our dressage score, which left us in fourth place!

I am really excited for our next (and I think last event before Badminton) in two weeks, and will continue to work hard to make sure we are fit and ready for the big day!

Missed part two of Lauren’s journey to Badminton series? Check it out here!

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