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Gearing up for Cornbury International
At Kate Honey Eventing, we are gearing up for a busy week at Cornbury International and wanted to give you an insight into the preparation work involved with our event horses. Our 9-year-old mare KEC Delicate Girl (Delphi) has been chosen to compete in the 2*S at Cornbury International 2023. Bought as a 5-year-old from show jumper Poppy Stronge, Delphi has done all her eventing at Meridian Stud - producing some great results so far.
"Confidence is Key"
During the season, when you are 'in the swing of things', you never want to make any drastic changes. However, maintaining confidence levels is key, along with tuning up any little areas of improvement which arise between events. In the run-up to Cornbury, Delphi completed a showjumping schooling round at Oakingham Stud to make sure she was entirely happy - she felt great: that preparation box ticked!
Refining the Movements
We then had a really productive dressage lesson with Dannie Morgan, where we worked on closing the canter to encourage Delphi to sit and lift, also helping with our simple changes. Throughout the whole session, the emphasis was on maintaining round and connected movement; all things which we will continue to work on with her, and carry forward to our test this weekend.
As a final important part of our preparation, we also visited Dickie Waygood to tune up our cross-country lines. As an essential exercise, this helps to keep both the rider and the horse thinking, especially focusing on the horse's footwork and rider accuracy.
Each horse differs in terms of what they require in the immediate lead-up to an event, but with Delphi, we have produced some good build-up training, so she will have a quiet hack today before heading off to Cornbury!
- Kate Honey - PE Sponsored Rider
