Luhmuehlen, Germany
Jun 19, 2011
For anyone who’s been watching results, you already know that Saturday didn’t go as planned for Jennie or myself. Will started off the day with a fantastic go on Missie that showed once again just what a super pair the two of them are. In the four star, Jennie had an unfortunate couple of run outs that would seem to be just greenness, and nothing that won’t be easy to fix for next time around. Will said he had a great ride on Pawlow and just had a frustrating run by at a corner.
I’m not sure right now if the scoreboard showed me having a Technical Elimination or having retired but the end result is the same. We all underestimated the effect that our tumble at Rolex had on Finian’s confidence and we left the box Saturday like an ally cat instead of a lion. Even more poorly planned, the course here isn’t the kind of course that would rebuild his confidence because nearly every fence is a wide table, just the type of fence we fell at in Kentucky. While I got nearly all the way around the course, it was not the way I wanted it to be, and when we finally did have a stop, 5 fences from home, I knew it was time to pack it in. I can only hope that Saturday’s go didn’t set us back further in the process of putting the roar back in the lion.
Now we have to go back and do what obviously needed to be done after Rolex which is to start back at square one and see that all our ducks are in a row. I’m fairly devastated that I didn’t foresee this situation better, as a part of me knew coming here we really weren’t ready. I feel a huge responsibility to make the right choices for how to bring Finian along, and I failed him in this instance. It’s one more reminder of needing to believe in my own decisions, a lesson I’ve been struggling to grasp all year.
The irony of it is that after Saturday and now that we’re here in Europe, we’re on our own to do whatever we please. I guess the good of that is that there is no pressure to do anything whatsoever, but at the moment, I can only feel the loneliness of finding the way on my own, and the hole in my gut that we’ve lost the belief that people had in us. The most important thing is that all four horses we brought here seem to be in really good shape tonight and will be ready to have another crack at it soon. Today Jennie will head back home while Will and I will pack up and head off to the UK. I am heading to Mike and Emma Winters farm in Cirencester and Will to Jackie Green’s in Marlborough.