Things did not go well on friday night when unfortunately the Hotel we were booked into held a Karaoke till 3.00 in the morning without warning us when we booked in. So after only three hours sleep Steve and I had to get up to drive to the venue for our pre-ride vetting which Dee passed easily.

I then tacked up and warmed Dee up in the centre of the racecourse with several other competitors. A very civilised start was made by all as we trotted off and out of the racecourse. A group of four of us , Antony Sargent on Ell Kaleefa Rose, Brian Davies on Greystone Taurus, Nicky Ghetler on Sundance and myself rode together till shortly before vet gate one as a group sharing gate duties, swopping the lead and generally having a good time. The only incident of note I am ashamed to say was Dee kicking Antony at one of the gates, something I will have to bear in mind in future. Fortunatly Anthony was only bruised.

About 1 km from the vet gate Nicky and I decided to slow down and therefore dropped behind the two men by a couple of minutes and then missed the turning for the vet gate wasting a further couple of minutes. Our crews who saw us do this were frantically waving at us but due to the oblique angle and some trees we could not see them. We quickly corrected our mistake. Once again Dee vetted very quickly and set about the task of eating and drinking having first pinned me to the refreshments caravan while she rubbed her head on me. Unfortunately Nicky failed the vetting lame. With 5 minutes to go we tacked up Dee, mounted and started to warm her up then we were off by ourselves at a steady trot.

Second loop to write about. Part way along the road back to the vet gate hopped off and walked Duiker in. Steve walked out to meet us with a slosh bottle which I poured over Dee. At this point I was sure something was wrong and we were going to fail the vetting so was not worried about time, just wanted to know what was wrong. We did not rush to get her heart rate down but were soon ready to present. Her initial heart rate was fine then we trotted up, the vet said he would like to see this again after her second heart rate was taken. Her second heart rate was elevated so I decided there and then regardless of the outcome of the trot up we would not be continuing. We trotted up for the vets anyway so I could get a concensus opinion on whether she was lame and if so which leg. Yes we were and the same hind leg as at Berkshire Downs. So undoubtaleby an underlying problem that needed checking out, probably muscular.

Not really what I had wanted but that's the way things go in this sport. I will now have to seriously reconsider my plans with Dee for the rest of this year. Either way I am not too upset as I purchased her more with a view to breeding from her than competing.

Below are my heart rate monitor and GPS readings from this ride.