Badminton Winner 2009
What an amazing week last week was. It still hasn’t really sunk in what Flint Curtis and I have done. It has been a dream for as long as I can remember to win Badminton and now I have done it. Flint was fantastic all week. He feels and looks better than he has ever done before. There are lots of photographs on the website from Badminton which look brilliant! It was a busy week as I had quite a few interviews to do and also filming with the BBC talking through jumping Huntsman’s Close on the cross country course. It was good to keep busy though because it was a long wait each day as Flint was last to go in all three phases. He has now got a well earned break for a few weeks before we plan our next events.
Going back, I had a good weekend at Weston Park too. It was nice not to have to travel too far to get to an event for once. I was really pleased with how all the horses went, with all of them who completed finishing in the top 4 placings.
I had a busy weekend at Burnham Market with 11 horses to compete. It was quite a challenge to organise them all but we managed and had a good few placings again. I was particularly pleased with Black Ace who did really well to finish second in the two star, and it was good to have Jackson d’Allez there to do his first event of the season. Then it was on to Powderham Castle on the Saturday, the British Open Cross Country Saturday night and then flying out to America on the Sunday morning. I was very, very happy with ODT Sonas Rovatio at the Open. He was by far the youngest horse there and is still in his first year eventing, so to come second was brilliant.
After that was Kentucky. It was great to be competing over in America. It’s quite different from over here, mainly because of the weather! Carousel Quest flew out a week before in order to go into quarantine. My groom Katherine Mellor was lucky to have to go with him 
for the whole two weeks he was out there! I was really pleased with how Quest went. I think we were a little unlucky to have the show jump down and it would have suited us to have a longer and tougher cross country course as he felt like he could have galloped for another two minutes when we finished. We all got back safe and sound, though a little jet lagged.
The weekend before Badminton we were at Withington Manor doing the Advanced. I had a bit of a bad fall on one of my horses but luckily I had my Point two air jacket on which did its job. I don’t know if I would have made Badminton in one piece without it!
We are off to Aston–le-Walls this week, then it's Chatsworth, Saumur, then back for Shelford Manor and then off again to Tattersalls... it never seems to slow down!
