Katherine Cooksley’s blog: Thunder & Lightening, very frightening!

Horslyx Ambassador Katherine Cooksley updates us on passing her HND and battling the thunder and lightening at Hickstead…

“Sorry everyone for a lack of updates recently, everything has got rather on top of me with the rundown and completion of my HND at college, the build up for the Hickstead Para- Dressage Championships and then the following week representing Great Britain for our fourth year running at Bishop Burton CPEDI 2*!”

“However I am very pleased to say we have come out on top! With gaining a distinction in my HND in Equine Management, and having a hat-trick win. I was thrilled with Rohan at this competition as he’s really starting to come out of his shell at competition and starting to try his hardest at competitions to stay focused and perform at his best in the arena and excitingly there is loads more to come, he just needs to know no one will eat him if he goes wrong in the arena! He loved going back to his stable after his tests to have a lick of his Horslyx, his own little reward to himself I think!”

“Hickstead was a little bit of a wash out, the first day was great however Rohan got a fright in the warm up arena just before going in so there was quite a bit of tension coming through in the test and we lacked power, landing us in third place on the Friday. Saturday was wash out day though, with thunder and lightening striking overhead when my Mum was plaiting, everyone was forced to temporarily evacuate the stables as the horses all became flighty as expected. This came along with torrential rain falling for the proceeding few hours. After the thunder and lightening  had subsided the preparations could continue whilst the stables were flooding which meant turnout on the lower half was a little less than desired as mud was being washed on by the weather! My test time on the Saturday was nice and early, and unfortunately this meant the torrential rain had not subsided. This meant Rohan and I warmed up in torrential rain and then by the time we came to do our test the arena had flooded. This meant that Rohan swam through his test to give a personal best score landing us into fourth place, which I was thrilled with given the weather conditions. All the clothes and equipment, all saturated then had to be peeled off of all of us and left to drip dry in the lorry, thankfully the sun came out not long after finishing our tests for the remainder of the day so my Mum became a personal clothes horse, standing in the sunshine trying to dry out my clothing ready for prize giving later in the day.”

“When we were home we then had a super quick turn around to get the mud filled lorry, equipment and clothing all clean and dry and damaged items replaced ready for round two at Bishop Burton. I am so thrilled to finish the last few weeks with the results we got at Bishop Burton as the hard work of the last few years is really starting to come out in Rohan. The next few months are a little quieter, I have a couple of regional qualifiers over the next few weeks for the Winter Championships next year, and then he’ll have a well deserved rest in August, before he is picked up to do more regional qualifiers through the autumn and winter months before next year kicks off! I can’t believe we are over half way through the year, where has the time gone? In the immediate days though both Rohan and I will be having a few quieter days before we pick up again to train for
the regionals at the end of the month.”