To Heathrow and Back!

To Heathrow and Back! Just returned from a 5am journey to Heathrow to realise that I am flying to Zimbabwe tonight not this morning! Penny has taken the blame for not looking at the tickets properly though so I am off the hook… at least I haven’t missed the flight! Will spend the rest of today doing banking and accounts… fun stuff!

I am off to Zimbabwe to play in the prestigious Zimbabwe Open – a competition of four sponsored polocrosse teams with players from predominantly Zimbabwe and South Africa, but also from Australia, New Zealand and the UK. I had the time of my life out there 13 years ago when I played a season of polocrosse there. It is an incredibly beautiful country with wonderful people. After everything it has been through (and still going through), it will be interesting to compare it to the country I once knew… I hope it’s not too harrowing.

It will be a great way to finish off the polocrosse season after a slightly disastrous National Championships for our team. We lost our first game heavily to Arden and although we managed to draw 15-15 in an exciting game against the favourites, Highlanders, it never felt like we were play to our potential. I rode a friend’s mare, Loreal Lee, who went brilliantly… it’s a shame I didn’t really do her justice!

On my return, I am really excited to get stuck into work again. I have got some lovely horses coming into the yard for starting… lots of big, posh dressage horses who I get vertigo on! I also have to get round to finding time to start my homebred two year olds. I tend to only give them about four weeks at this stage of their lives then leave them to mature for anther 8 months or so. They are so much easier to break-in at this age… I tend to worry slightly when clients drop off 5 year old colts for starting – they certainly know their own strength by then!

Talk to you when I get back from Zim, with some good pictures hopefully!