The following tale is one of firsts, mistakes and successes - hopefully it will help other Aussie's following in the months and years to come!
The Celtic Winners Australia team have been based in Ireland for just on 12 months now and this is to be the first journey "across the waters" to England with horses, for competition. The two stallions on this trip are Celtic Gold, a 12 year old Irish Draught stallion who jumped to Grade A in Australia before returning to his native Ireland and MyCeltic IMPoster, a 5 year old Irish Sport Horse stallion making his first "big trip" away from his native shores.
The three Aussies are rider, Scottie Barclay who is heading to Towerlands in Essex, UK for the International Young Riders competition as part of the Sci-Girth International Young Rider Team from Victoria, Australia. Then there is myself, Jan Heine and jumpingaround.com photographer, Maggie Jacob and add to this bunch of "beginners" our well traveled and brilliant Irish Groom, Caoimhe Kennedy and you have an unusual traveling team.
Having been used to simply putting our horses on a lorry and "heading to the show" we thought it couldn't be that much different on the other side of the world - but we were wrong, very wrong! The first thing we had to find was transport - and that proved to be very difficult, especially at this time of year as all the major transporters are moving mares all over Ireland, UK and the Continent for the breeding season and so asking to put two stallions on board caused most companies great concern and then finished with the quotes being nearly the same cost as bringing horses from Australia to England which seemed a little like overkill considering the classes are mostly worth 150 english quid to win!
Then the phone calls started all over Ireland to see whether any of the Irish Young Riders were heading to this International Young Rider show only to discover that the show actually runs too early for the Irish riders as they haven't yet begun to bring their horses in from the Winter break so none were going!
Finally, thanks to the fabulous people at Horse Ireland France, we arranged our transport at a price which was a great deal less than any of the other quotes and they were prepared to also take our tack box and trunk plus feed, which was incredible after the three weeks spent trying to find someone who would take the stallions, let alone the associated gear!
Now all was coming together for our "big adventure" and we were all set to follow the transporter in our car because we didn't have a clue as to how to get to Towerlands and the next "moment of understanding" struck us - we had to book the car onto the ferry because in our excitement about the trip we had forgotten that we actually have to cross the Irish Sea to get to United Kingdom's shores so again thanks to Horse Ireland France who gave us phone numbers and ferry details to ensure we got on the same ferry as the horses!
So with one week to go before leaving Ireland, we thought all was coming together when Horse Ireland France rang to remind us that we need "EVA certificates" for both the stallions! Now this was news to us because coming from Australia where we don't have any nasty diseases of the horse we had no idea what was needed - but we had been diligent about the horses all having their correct vaccinations so it was a simple matter of having a blood test to ensure the horses were not carriers of the EVA virus - and this was especially relevant at this time because of an EVA outbreak in the UK.
Then we had to make sure we had our own passports, and the required Irish Horse Passports so we were looking good with our paperwork! Then a "chance" phone call to the BSJA to enquire about some other non associated things and we discovered that our SJAI memberships and Horse Registrations didn't cover us in England and so we had to organise temporary memberships for rider, owner and horses - and for those who think the Australian EFA memberships are expensive, think again - for two stallions, a rider and an owner the cost comes to AUD$170 and that is only valid for the two shows! Makes the Australian membership seem quite insignificant in comparison really and this is something which again has to be remembered when traveling with competition horses - temporary memberships are required with the Federation in the country you are traveling to.
So now we are pretty sure we have everything "under control" for our big adventure and with just two days till we head off we are all looking forward very much to getting under way. The trip will involve an hour to the ferry then 3hrs on the ferry which will get us in around midnight and from there we have roughly 6 hours travel - but thankfully we don't have stops on the way to drop off horses as we are the first drop off
The rest of the team arrived in England on Tuesday at some ungodly hour in the morning and then made their way to Towerlands.
Rember that due to the wonders of modern technology and thanks to Vodafone we will be bringing you the photos and reports from the show pretty much as they happen, if all goes according to plan, so remember to tune in daily for news of the competition which begins on Monday, 15th March and runs through till Wednesday. There is then a layover day on Thursday and Friday the competition begins again through to Sunday.
