Roxie's back home! :) & Stratford Hills report.....

I'll start with some good news......Roxie's home and the long road to recovery can begin!

I went up to Bell Equine last Tuesday to see Roxie and David (The vet who operated on her) was doing a bandage change. He was very pleased with how it was looking. There was still some discharge on the dressing but when he did flexion movments on her knee joint there was no visible synovial fluid coming out which means that hopefully the membrane over her knee is healing.  

She is no longer on pain killers and the vets are very happy with how well she is moving on it. She had having further tests done on Thursday and David tapped her knee joint again to see if she has managed to fight off the infection.......the results are showing good progress and he was happy for her to come home last Friday!! She's back where she belongs now, even if I've got months of bandaging ahead of me :) Roxie is very pleased to be home too and had a good catch up nose tickle and scratch with Milli! We have to go back to Bell Equine at the end of next week for a check up.....fingers crossed they're pleased with how it's looking and the progression is good!

Milli has been working incredibly well recently and thankfully before my bad fall on Roxie at Tweseldown, I had already completed the Novice on Milli. It was only mine and Milli's second Novice run of the season and she proved she's more than ready for the step up. I've been working really hard on her dressage at home as she can work very well but it's just been a case of persuading her to work well! She certainly worked well at Tweseldown and performed a lovely test to score 33.0 which put us in the top 15 after dressage! Next was the SJ and, as always at Tweseldown the course was up to height with lots of people having faults. Milli jumped a super round for me, picking up a very unlucky 4 faults at fence 6, which was an upright back towards all the tradestands and she just went a little babyish on me when we turned to face all the tradestands so just got a bit close and tapped it behind. On to the XC and she was an absolute star and jumped a super clear around what was a very tough track for that level and we only picked up 3.2 time faults which resulted in us finishing in 12th place in a big arena of 40+ competitors so I was incredibly pleased with her.

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I had a few days off riding after my fall with Roxie as I was very sore, a bit battered and bruised! I had a dressage lesson on Milli and although I ached quite a lot after it was bearable so I decided to go ahead and still run Milli at Stratford Hills last weekend. It wasn't our finest run by any means but it did us good to go. My right hip is still sore from my fall and I think this is making me sit slightly lopsided and Milli is such a sensitive little mare she wasn't very happy with how I was sat in the dressage which resulted in us scoring 41.0. With a few pain killers taken, I change dour tack and we headed off to the SJ arena. The SJ course looked a really nice course on forward distances but it was causing chaos!! I went in and Milli started jumping very well but we did tap two poles and then she went to have two stops at the bogey fence, fence 8, which was very unlike her. The fence was causing many problems with other riders as well but Milli has never stopped before so she was obviously picking up slight nerves from me but she finished the course really well. I was unsure whether to take her XC or not as Roxie's fall had clearly knocked my confidence more than I had thought, probably mainly because poor Roxie got so badly injured. After talking to my mum I decided to take Milli XC but just to go steady. Milli was a star and gave me a super run, making nothing of the course which was a real confidence boost for me, especially after hearing the news of the deaths at Luhmuhlen  and Nunney, it really brought home how dangerous this sport we love so much actually is!

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Milli and I had a SJ lesson on Wednesday and we had a great lesson. She jumped like a pro, so after this, and we have another lesson next week as well to make sure we're are fully prepared for our next run which is at Eridge Horse Trials at the end of the month :) Carly from WOW Saddles is coming out at the weekend to check the air in my saddles as we think I may need some asymmetric air in again after my fall with Roxie, so that I'm sitting evenly on Milli's back.......It really is magic how these saddles work!

SG Eventing
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***Keep Calm & Canter On***
***Eventing 2014***