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Lincoln & Oratorio
After a rapid turnaround with the lorry on Saturday, we picked up Alex VT to help with the driving, and we picked up the three Advanced horses. We were very lucky to be staying overnight with Piggy French, sadly we arrived rather late but the stables were all ready for us which was very spoiling. We had another pretty early start to get up for Lincoln.
Oratorio got the day off to a brilliant start in the dressage with a score of 23, he felt so established and relaxed, even though it was an OI I was quite excited. He jumped a very respectable show jumping round with one pole down.
The cross country turned the day into a tragedy. He flew the first part of the cross country course, feeling amazing and making it all seemless. But then the worst happened; we were galloping towards the last fence and he collapsed and died from a heart attack.
There is no easy way of saying this but it was out of nowhere, he was one minute feeling fantastic and next minute gone, and I have to take consolation from the fact that he did not suffer, there was no indication that anything was untoward and we all have to believe that, with any animal there is always uncertainty. My devastation extends to the whole Oratorio team who have supported him for so long, and believed in him. We were all very excited about Badminton 2023, and he had really felt like an established mature 5* event horse.
The Lincoln team dealt with the nightmare brilliantly, they were very professional and efficient and I am very grateful for all their support.
My team were brilliant too, and much as we would have preferred not to, we had to continue with the day to qualify the horses for the season ahead.
Grafennacht was having her first run unbelievably since Boekelo 2021, and she was remarkably relaxed. She did a very decent dressage of 26, her show jumping was a round I need to forget. She got rather stuck in the mud and was very surprised that the jumps were so much bigger than she thought. She then flew around the cross country and felt totally back to her best, and that has hopefully set her up for Thoresby.
Moonlight Charmer got a last minute waitlist slot into the AI, and as you all know I am not a fan of AI's but how owners and I decided it would be good to give him a run. He did some very pleasing work to score 32. He had a couple for rails show jumping, I also was given time faults for apparently going though the start twice.....for which I disagree. He felt very focused and confident cross country.
Oratorio, Lincoln Horse Trials, March 2023
