Yorkshire in sunshine

Thankfully there was not too long a gap between Hartpury and our next international at Bishop Burton during the first week of August. Angela, friend and former co-groom to Marion Mould with me many years ago, was persuaded out of retirement for the week to help out! We had a pretty good drive up there and passed the 240 mile journey reminiscing and testing each other’s memory from our days working with show jumpers! Rhapsody was his usual perfect traveller self and we arrived at lunchtime as planned. Having never been to Bishop Burton before we quickly found our way around and Rhaps was soon rolling in his new shavings bed. A leg stretch for Rhaps in the afternoon, a sort out in the lorry of all his Simple System feed and hay and we were all set for the next day’s trot up.
Rhaps loves showing off at the trot up and this time was no exception - but at least he waited till after the veterinary inspection! I had a late afternoon time for riding and 15 minutes arena familiarisation which ended up clashing with the chef d’equipes meeting when there was a last minute time change. I rode as planned and Angela went to the meeting - she was getting straight back into the swing of things! Rhaps felt great, full of energy which was our plan and I was looking forward to the team test bright and early on Thursday morning. Read more