Friday 26th - Day of the pre-ride vetting

On this day the horses were fed by 7am so mum did the duties again and I brought her some breakfast at 8am when I got there instead of her coming back to the hotel to then go straight back to the venue. She stayed there along with Julie (Penny’s mum) and they groomed our horses for us so when we were to get them out, they wouldn’t be dirty (we were representing Great Britain you know! They weren’t allowed to be seen dirty!) Anyway, like the day before, we took the horses out for an hour’s ride but picked up the pace slightly doing some cantering in places. We managed to get further round the yellow loop this time which allowed us to see more of the terrain and what to expect. We picked up on some useful factors such as tracks with huge rocks and were able to avoid them on race day which undoubtedly in my case avoided lameness problems. Everything was going well until the end of our ride where something went wrong with one of the horses. Thankfully, the rider was very quick on their toes and recognised the problem straight away which resulted in it being sorted. This disturbed the mood tremendously as this was the day of the initial vetting and we were all unsure on whether the horse would continue. Nonetheless, the horse went back to its normal self and we are all able to relax (slightly) and crack on with the pre-ride vetting. 

All of the horses were bathed and put into their stables for the lock down between 12-2 which gave us all a chance to grab some lunch and get dressed appropriately for the vetting which was to be at 3pm. We all got back to the venue and started plaiting using red, white and blue ribbon to show our patriotic manner. All of the horses looked very smart and behaved well under the gazebos for the vetting and passed with flying colours. The horses were then taken off to graze in-hand for the rest of the day up until 8pm, so the rest of us got to work on preparing the vet gate and hold area. Philip and Sam (the driver) thought they would tackle my gazebo without using the instructions and quickly failed. Out came the instructions and my nanny and I came to their rescue by helping them with the assembly – a gazebo that decided it would fall apart at one side whenever you added another pole the other side. Once everything was where it should be, we had the all important riders meeting with the Chef and team vet. This was when we decided how we would start and ride the race. The decision was that we would start at the back to avoid getting caught up with the other riders and maximise the chance of breaks. Everyone was happy with the decision and felt more confident that our race would be under control rather than a mad rush. 

 

Stupidly, I got a mild case of heat stroke and started to fade away towards the end of the day. Looking back on things, I definitely got carried away with organising everything for the morning and did a lot of lifting and moving in the heat without drinking enough water which resulted in how I ended up feeling – s**t. I got a McDonald’s for dinner and retired back to my room quite early on to get an early night. Before I went to bed, team physio Lee Clark kindly strapped my hip up with Kinesio Tape in order to support it throughout the race. I had a disease in my hip when I was younger called ‘Perthes Diease’ which has resulted in me having a 4” pin in my hip ever since. This means I get a lot of pain in my hip which also shoots down my leg and the tape was there to just optimise support and do its best to minimise pain. Once Lee had finished, I got into bed, set my alarm for 3:30 and went to bed.