My First Time: Competing in Roses 2018
A lot of training went into our preparation for this year's Roses competition between York and Lancaster University. The competition itself is very unique and is a highlight of the year, especially because we don’t see York at all throughout the year and don’t know how the other has been competing, so naturally it becomes way more competitive than any other competition we have. Our biggest challenge, in my opinion, was that although we had a lot of time to prepare throughout the year with several competitions, with Roses being so soon after the Easter holiday, we only had one week after getting back to train for it. This was quite a struggle because some of the team didn’t train over the holidays, which although it didn’t cause a major issue, it may have made some team members more nervous about the competition than they normally would have been.
As my first Roses competition, I was thrilled with how smoothly the day went, and how all the team members competed. After the dressage I was a tad worried, because York A’s were ahead by 9/10 points than Lancaster B’s and A’s respectively. However, we managed to pull it out of the bag in the end! I’m really proud of how well everyone competed, especially with B’s being right up there with the A team points wise! Both the A’s and B’s work really well together, especially because we know each other's strengths and weaknesses, and we all give each other pointers with how to ride the horses. Warming up is always really good for the team, because we support each other and help keep morale up.
I think next year things might be a little different, because obviously with home competitions we know the horses better, so have the upper hand there, so if we stick to this system then York will have the advantage next year. However, there is a possibility of making the competition more “fair”, by finding a stable somewhere between both universities, where neither of us will know the horses, so no one is already at an advantage. This will obviously make the competition more interesting, and will hopefully be a success. But for this year ROSES ARE RED!!