Tilda Carnegie’s international competition adventure in the UK
© Tilda Carnegie
By Tilda Carnegie
Australian Para dressage rider Tilda Carnegie discusses her recent trip to the UK which included competing Hartpury and Uberhernn, as well as receiving a lesson from Charlotte Dujardin! Please click here to catch up on part one.
Overall training
At Katie’s yard the horses get worked in the arena four times a week and twice a week they hack-out, with Sunday being their day off. This is a program I totally believe in as horses need to get out and about to be familiarised with different things and it is so important for their minds to break it up. I didn’t have a lot of time to ride Eric before I was due to compete at Hartpury, so we focused a lot on riding the movements out of the test so I could get a feel for what it was like to ride it on him. Eric had done around 10 shows all up before Hartpury up to around medium level here, so he was maybe a little green. However I really got on with him and found him to be very good for my riding as I had to show him the way in a thoughtful manner. With Tilly being so established and reliable, I had gotten a bit slack on setting up the movements properly and maybe not riding her as much as I should have. Riding him gave me a lot of transferrable skills for my mare Tilly, where I can now hopefully guide her tactfully to where we want to go, which is fingers crossed Tokyo.
Hartpury
After a dream ten days of watching amazing horses and training, it was now down to business. I’ll be honest and say I wasn’t expecting a great result as I had done my research on many of the international para riders and they are all amazing! Many people had warned me that the standard in Europe and UK was incredibly high and huge step up from anything back in Australia, so I made sure to be realistic. Honestly even though my expectations of the standard was high, each and every rider far exceeded these expectations and I was honestly just in awe. For me, it was a combination of inspiration of what’s possible if you work your guts out but also a sombre reminder of how far I have to go.
We arrived at the stables on Tuesday afternoon and Eric was unloaded to have a vet inspection, which they do with all the horses upon arrival and during this time you give the officials your horse’s passport. We set his bed up and made sure he had hay and water and was comfortably settled in. I took a moment to see my name on the stable alongside Eric’s name with the Australian flag, this was stuff dreams are made off. A year ago I wouldn’t have even contemplated doing something like this, so allowed myself to appreciate how far I had come. Soon it was time for the trot up, which Eric passed with flying colours. As trot up is determined in alphabetical order according to country, being Australian meant we were first cab of the rank, so it was quite a mad dash to get him ready! After trot up, we had arena familiarisation, which was good chance to iron out any crinkles and Eric was an angel, who took everything in his stride.
Aussie Aussie Aussie! © Tilda Carnegie
Wednesday was the first day of competing and was team test day. I was honestly a bit nervous and being sandwiched between the two WEG medallists of the class was a bit daunting. I was determined to not let it get the better of me and just focus on riding the best test I could in that moment. Before I went in, I did feel really ill but in moments like these you just have to trust that you’ve done your homework in all the years of hard training. We did a nice respectable test, with a few mistakes, which probably came from only having 10 days to form a partnership. So I was pleased with 63% all factors considered but also realised nerves got in the way, which meant I perhaps wasn’t riding as well as I could have.
Upon watching all of the competition and how polished their tests were, I realised that my ideas of test riding aren’t spot-on. That has been a big lesson and to maximise my chances of getting to Tokyo I realise that test riding will have to become a big part of my training moving forwards.
The next day was the individual test and I was more determined to give it my all. In my warm up, I went for it more and essentially “meant business”. In the test, I made sure to ride every bit and do my best to improve from the first day and our marks improved slightly up to 64% and we were all very pleased with the test. We were maybe a bit disappointed with the score, however I felt that I truly rode the best test I could in the moment so sometimes there are days when the result doesn’t matter. It was honestly just such an amazing experience to be there and just soak up the chance to compete in such an atmosphere.
I had now finished competing, so just enjoyed being a spectator for the rest of the show. It was honestly mind-blowing to see the depth of high quality horses and talented trainers, I had goose bumps the whole time. It was really amazing to gain a fresh perspective and just truly appreciate the skill of all these great riders.
It’s showtime!
© Tilda Carnegie
Uberhernn
To make the most of this trip over, we decided to do a second international competition in Germany. This show threw me a fair few curve balls, however I have dealt with many curve balls before and overtime have learned that they are all truly part of the journey.
My groom and I drove up in the truck with Eric and it was quite cool to pass through four countries in a day… quite different to Aus where even after two days of travel you are still in the country! He had a couple of arena familiarisation rides and again took it all in his stride. Again he passed through trot up with flying colours, it was now showtime.
The Friday was team test day, so same drill again. Eric warmed up great and showed some great work. Unfortunately all the good work stayed in the warm up, something that I am sure many riders can relate to. As soon as we went into the ring, Eric got his tongue over the bit and lets just say the tongue was having it’s own party. Seeing the tongue wave around throughout the test was a bit off-putting but I made sure to keep riding the test. Sometimes when things don’t go to plan, you just have to keep swimming! Understandably the score reflected this and it was just one of those unfortunate circumstances that was out of anyone’s control.
Saturday was individual test day and unfortunately I was a bit unnerved from the previous day. The arenas were fairly boggy and I think became a bit much for Eric, as the surfaces were quite slippery. The combination of these factors meant that the test was scattered with mistakes and I rode the test somewhat flustered, so the score again understandably reflected this. However I was very grateful to have the opportunity to do these events and felt very glad to have my baptism of fire ahead of time, something I think happens to many Australians when they go overseas to compete for the first time.
A thank you
I have so many people to thank for making it all possible… to make anything great happen it truly does take a village. Massive thank you to Katie Bailey for taking this random Aussie on, providing me with a really supportive training atmosphere and for going above and beyond to give me so many great opportunities. A huge thank you to Katie’s yard manager, Tom Hobday, for making me feel so welcome and for all the jokes and laughter, plus just being such a legendary groom. Thank you to the lovely owner of Eric, Wala Ghandour, for kindly loaning me Eric and making the opportunity to compete internationally possible. A big shout-out goes to my long-term coach Gitte Donvig for all the years training me and for getting me to this level, no one else could have done it but you did it, even if the journey was a bit wild at times. Massive thank you goes to Vanessa Way for allowing us to use her connections to train and compete internationally. Thank you to everyone for all your support on this crazy journey, every kind message and comment means the world to me!
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