Camp life so far ..............
I am sitting here in my room at the beautiful Unicorn Trust Centre, with typically the first cold I have gotten since I arrived in the UK and feeling a bit sorry for Stuart's groom Amy who is my roomy for the week. I am recovering but it has been going around with the change of season coming upon us.
I arrived early at camp over the weekend and have met up with fellow Aussie based riders Shane Rose and Stuart Tinney. It’s nice to see familiar faces and I missed the crazy shenanigans Shane gets up to which make life interesting.
We have plenty of things to do this week including having lessons with UK WEG team dressage member Gareth Hughes and showjumping with Gilbert Bockmann. Last week we got all dressed up and did our WEG dressage test in front FEI dressage judge Judy Harvey who critiqued us later that evening.
We also have physio sessions and a personal trainer to get us all nimble and work on core stability and maintain fitness. This has been quite Interesting with a few youngish and old boys being rather tight in a lot of places in camp. Being the only girl now on the squad, I get to put up with all the grunting and groaning as the boys attempt to stretch and squat! But I can tell you now that a miracle has happened and Shane can now finally touch his toes in only a week so it’s all worth it!!
The horses are well looked after too with our own personal horse physio who has been part of the team for longer than anyone here currently bar Andrew. Plus the vets are constantly keeping an eye on all the horses soundness and wellbeing.
You probably don’t realise back at home how many people are involved with the team behind the scenes who never get much of a mention. I probably can’t tell you the exact role of everyone but from our Chef Prue Barrett to media managers, vets, farriers, cooks, photographer (other than taking amazing pics) has the tedious roll of sitting there all day taking videos of everyone for us to view which is very important! We can’t forget the ever so hard working grooms who look after our horses whilst we do our physio (and no it’s not just a massage, we are seriously getting our bodies into shape and it’s painful) We have some very special people organising everything so us riders just have to go out there and do our best and not have to think of anything but that!
There are some awesome gallops just down the road in Stow with an all weather surface and a large hill. Many people use this from the local race horse trainers to eventers alike. We don’t have anything quite like it at home but it is a business here to own a gallop track.
After the rest of the team arrived on Tuesday, we were fitted with our very cool uniforms thanks to Ariat and my favourite 2XU compression gear for our fitness and recovery sessions.
Sam and I in team uniform (left) and Sam with Helen Pawsey, my groom
I am currently entered for Burghley in two weeks time if I am not needed for WEG. That is also pretty exciting as the event is amazing and a dream come true to be able to compete at. By being based at Andrews (just half hour drive), it’s a local event for me and I have met so many great people during my 4 month stay here in the UK. It will be just like home having plenty of locals to cheer Algebra and I on! But in the meantime, I get to train with the boys and will be lapping up the experience for possible future teams.
