We heard from Allen & Page supported rider, India Wishart, as she heads to her first Badminton 5* event.
India discusses how she planned to do Badminton, the horses feeding regimes and planning for the big event.
We wish India the best of luck for Badminton next week, and hope you enjoy this insight!
T-8 days until trot up day at my first Badminton!
I am writing this sat in the lorry on the way home from Somerford Park, where I have just had my last XC school with Andy Heffernan. Diamond Sundance (or Sunny as he’s known to all his friends), has been with me for two years. He is owned by Richard and Cindy Onslow and is very special, having taken their daughter Rosa around her first 5* before coming to me to do the same thing - I couldn’t think of a better pair of ears to be sat behind before walking into the start box on XC day.
Our 2023 season culminated on a high finishing 28th at Pau 5* in October, and all roads have led to Badminton since then. Preparation for top level events requires a huge amount of planning in advance, once we got back from Pau Sunny had a quiet week with me, and was checked over by my vet before going back to his owners in Scotland for the winter. My home team and I, alongside his owners, who know him so well, made a winter plan for his work building up from a few weeks walking, to trotting and then starting to canter all around the Scottish hills. Sunny lives for his work, and at 18 he is much happier being kept ticking over, so after two weeks in the field the hacking began.
One thing that was vital to keep consistent was his feed. Sunny is fed on Allen & Page Calm & Condition as well as Quiet Cubes during the winter. Then once we hit the end of Feb/March, we started to gradually remove the Quiet Cubes and add in Power & Performance as a top up, alongside Sunnys Calm & Condition.
Sunny can get very excited in his brain, especially when at events, but I have found that Power & Performance has enabled me to get some high energy feed into him when his work intensity picks up, without losing his brain. Sunny absolutely loves his feed, as do all my horses, and it is an integral part of fuelling and keeping him in top condition.
Our prep runs have all gone according to plan. We got rid of all the pre-season excitement at Tweseldown OI, used Thoresby 4* as a combined training event, doing just the dressage and showjumping, and then headed to Burnham Market Advanced. Despite our dressage being slightly explosive (Sunny didn’t appreciate my tailcoat flapping around in the wind!!), we had a great run posting a double clear with 10 time faults to finish 9th. It was great to have such a confidence instilling spin, and it was good practise to get up into the higher gears on good ground.
This takes us to today - our last Cross country school. This was an opportunity to practise a few tricky lines, making sure that we are on our ‘A game’, whilst giving both of us confidence. I have a great team behind me, so we are feeling well prepped heading into the biggest event of both of our careers so far!
Sunny will do his last big bit of gallop work on Monday, and then I aim to give him a slightly easier week on the lead up to leaving. I have two more events to tick off with the younger horses - Cirencester and Solihull, before the lorry is washed inside and out ready to be packed!
Badminton is starting to feel very real now, fingers crossed the next 8 days go smoothly!
India
