a) it’s a good job 7th is a pretty colour rosette.
b) did you know you don't have the 30 miles I thought you did left in the diesel tank when your warning light comes on.
c) thank god for iCandy prams
Well let’s go from the beginning. That’s easy, that’s b) on my list. About 10 miles down the road and we came to a bunny hoppy stop after going up a steep hill and my question of “will we get to the fuel station with the light on?” was answered. Luckily some lovely elderly people quickly stepped up to the challenge of rescue mission and took Nikee Hudson to the closest fuel station, where she proceeded to buy a diamond encrusted fuel can for £18!!!!!😱filled up and luckily when we put the fuel in the lorry it fired up third time and we didn’t require a rescue service to bleed the tank. I am never letting it get that low EVER again!!! And on our way we went. Once we finally arrived everything seemed to be going well. Oh hold on a minute we missed an incident which happened on route...have you ever had a Buffalo Wrap from McDonald's?! No? Well don’t!!!! Oh you have, then you feel my pain...I may as well of eaten a 1000 chillies 🌶 Ask Nikee, there was literally fire coming out of my mouth 🙈 So back at Lincoln all is good, ponies all got exercised, walked round the show ring to find all our arenas, had a fabulous dinner cooked by Mummy Fishburn, watched TV in Queen Wendy, firstly got entertained by a very excitable orange kid aka HRH that didn’t want to go to bed, secondly got entertained by watching Nikee get into her bed which is the top bunk in Wendy that has never been used, it’s very high and very tight, lights off and sleep.
On to Saturday, we had all our times and arenas and plan mapped out and everything seemed to be going pretty well. I had 7 possibly 9 things to ride in if everything went well. First up was Percy in the 100 SJ, simples, clear round and i’m lead to believe one of very few having heard that someone watched for half an hour and didn’t see one clear. Onto Florence in the 90 SJ, simple, another clear. A quick rush over to the next arena on Florence to jump another clear in the 85 Style Jumping.
And then an equally quick change around on to Percy for N27, with only a quick warm up he pulled a lovely test out of the bag. A little bit of a breather before Nikee swapped on to Percy and I hopped on Florence for the Pairs Dressage. Apart from Florence trying to barge her brother out of the arena at one point, I was really pleased with our test. Next I headed back to the 100 SJ with Percy to pop round for another clear. Then another quick swap on to Florence for the 90 SJ and another clear round. So the day is going very smoothly and all the horses performing beautifully. And then things started going a little crazy. I now had both Florence and Percy in their jumps offs after both jumping double clears. The classes ended up clashing and I’d got the wrong horse ready first and they were calling me for the other class but luckily Carol Meade stepped up to the challenge of putting the commentator straight when he said I’d withdrawn Florence from the 90 😱 I got Percy’s jump off jumped first just catching an unlucky rail. Nikee had run and got Florence down from the stables, so I got her warmed up, quickly learnt my 7th course of the day, went for it but unfortunately lowered 2 rails. And breath, that brings our day to a close, with a 4th in the Style Jumping out of over 50 competitors, even through they had added my sheet up wrong and had me down as last 😱 Carol to the rescue again got them to add it up again and find they were 70 marks out. Our Team Weaver were also 6th. 9th in the 90 SJ out of 86 competitors and 7th in the 100 SJ out of 80 competitors, both could have been 2nd if I’d left the fences up in the jump off, 7th in the Novice 27 with a 66.43% out of over 30 competitors, could have been 5th if I hadn’t been penalised by two marks for only putting one bridle number on, when did that rule come in?! 😭 Very annoying when you only have to wear one back number!!! And finally another 7th in the Pairs Dressage with a mark of 96. So that wraps up a) about 7th being a good colour rosette, I like turquoise and god job cause I had 3 of them, a few dramas effecting scores but overall for a National Championships some great results.
And now we come to c) about the iCandy prams. Well it all started when I lost Mum and Harriet, I wondered where they had got to after the pairs dressage, as usual Mum was being a star pushing Harriet, controlling 2 dogs and being on photographer duty, but after my 5th class of the day she seemed to disappear. When ever I asked people where she was they were like “over there” or “over there” or “changing HRH” etc.... well I just believed everybody and got on with riding. Then when I finally got back to the lorry having finished riding I came across a smashed tub of Equerry Minty Treats that I had only just filled up in morning and put in the bottom of the pram to treat my horses between classes. I went to find Mum and find out what had happened. I found her sat with Hayley Mayer’s parents having a glass of wine looking somewhat emotional, whilst Harriet crawled round the floor like the jolly baby that she is. When I asked her what had happened to the treats she replied with “you’ve not heard then?!” This is where things get scary....turns out whilst walking back from the pairs dressage Carol Meade, Mum and Harriet had been ploughed into my an out of control horse with a rider onboard. Carol and Mum were knocked to the floor and the horse hit Harriet’s iCandy pram, snapping the handle in two places and bending the chassis which caused the seat part of the pram to become unattached, luckily throwing Harriet, still harnessed in her seat out of the way of the weight of the horse which came down on Carols arm 😱😱😱 Apparently Harriet was screaming in shock and was quickly attended to by paramedics who spent an hour with her making sure she was ok. They said that there are only two prams that would withstand the sort of collision they had had and iCandy was one of them, and that if Harriet had been in anything else the outcome could have been a whole different story 😱 To say I was shocked at what I was hearing is an understatement. And to think that whilst all this was going on I was busy playing ponies and knew nothing about it. Everyone seemed to know apart from me. Carol had even managed to bring me my whip that had been in the pram and not let on what had happened and Nikee was aware to. They just decided because Harriet was actually unharmed they would just let me carry on with my classes, otherwise I would have just got totally stressed out and not been able to focus on riding. What an amazing bunch of friends I have. Had I have listened to the commentator properly earlier who announced I’d withdrawn, before shouting for help to let them know I hadn’t withdrawn, what he actually said was “Oh it appears Bonnie Fishburn has withdrawn, she has taken her daughter to hospital” how lucky is it I didn’t listen to everything he said, I would have been beside myself with worry!!!
So that was our report of the BRC National Championships 2018 and I’m pleased to say our 113 mile journey home was totally without drama!!! 😂
I’m just so grateful to everyone who acted so quickly to ensure Harriet was save. And a big thank you to iCandy for designing and making such strong prams. 😘