Welcome to Georgie Spence's next monthly diary installment. Georgie (19) is an eventer and is based near Chippenham, Wiltshire. She is currently on the World Class Start Programme for future potential Olympic British team prospects. She was a member of the gold medal - winning team at the Young Rider Europeans at Blair Castle in 2007 and received an award from British Eventing for being the rider under 21 years of age gaining the most points in 2007. In 2008 she is aiming to compete in her first 4* event.
Georgie writes:
At last the event season has started and I am very pleased with how the horses are coping, especially the youngsters. It has also been another very hectic month!
The first event was Stilemans and we took Song for Gull (Gully), Trenear (Trin), Skylight (Kiki) and Downleadon (Minx). Gully and Trin were both excited to be out, but a little rusty after the winter, and Minx didn’t feel her normal self so we withdrew her after the cross country. Kiki was super. She did a 30.5 dressage test, jumped double clear and won, so I was delighted.
Trenear (Trin) was a little excitable on his first outing of the year.
The next event was Tweseldown where I had six horses to ride. It was Sophie’s first outing and she was very wobbly and green. She stopped at the first showjump but then flew round. We had two down but I was delighted with her performance. Running Brook went superbly in the Open Intermediate, and Kiki pulled out the stops again and came 3rd in the Open Novice. Gully jumped a great double clear and finished 7th and Daisy came 5th in the Open. Trin jumped really well, but we didn’t quite jump the right side of the flag at the first corner fence in the cross country and so were eliminated for error on course.
Aldon was extremely muddy to say the least, but the horses still jumped amazingly with Gull and Tom placed 4th and 5th in their classes. Gatcombe was cancelled so we took the youngsters to Munstead to do the Open Intro.
Henry was very excitable and kept looking around at everything. Ollie was awesome and lots of people commented on how nice he is and we finished in 10th. Both he and Henry jumped perfect cross country rounds so I was thrilled with them.
Had another good day at Somerley and finished 4th on Tom, 6th on Running Brook and was delighted to win the Under 21 prize for the second year running. We also had good result at Portman and Henry really came into his own with a 34 test and a double clear. He was amazing – I can’t believe how confident he is for a five-year-old!
Goring was also cancelled so we finished off the month at Portman, where I competed on Ollie and Sophie and went round hors concours (non competitively) on Hamish and a new ride, Neremptah, who is owned by Eugenia Chapman Campbell.
Ollie and Sophie finished in 4th and 5th and the other two would have won had we not been hors concours, so it was another good day.
Georgie is hoping to ride Running Brook II at Badminton.
I am now waiting nervously in hope that I will be able to take Running Brook II to Badminton. This will be our first 4* event but with record entries this year, we are in 8th place on the waiting list. The first four riders have been accepted and so we just need four more horses to be withdrawn to allow our entry to go through. Fingers and toes are crossed!
To find out more about Georgie please visit www.georgiespence.com
