Heath and the Sydney CDI 2011

Well Sydney CDI 2011 was probably a show Heath would rather forget!

Firstly let me clarify the reason behind Heath and Regardez Moi's score of 59.2% in the Grand Prix Freestyle on Saturday night. We have received numerous emails and phone calls saying "the judges got it wrong!", well in fact in this instance even Heath will agree that the judges essentially got it right. I will insert a quote now directly from a reply Heath wrote to one of those emails. "I am still recovering from depression from last night but what you don’t realise is that it was all self-inflicted. In the freestyle there are a certain number of movements you just have to incorporate and that includes canter pirouettes both to the right and to the left. Regardez Moi is really good at pirouettes when behaving and I always do double pirouettes which are considered very difficult. Well last night I did a pretty good double pirouette to the right but completely forgot any pirouettes to the left. It doesn’t matter how much the judges liked me they had to give me a zero for that movement. That equates into a disaster of a score. Mind you it wasn’t my greatest test anyway but I do only have myself to blame. That really hurts."

Unfortunately Heath's Grand Prix Freestyle disaster was only one part of a weekend Heath would rather forget. Heath's small tour horse (and 4-star eventer) Mystery Whisper was also entered in this years CDI. Mystery Whisper was unable to start in the competition due to the fact that he had received an injection of procaine penicillin about 2 weeks before the start of the CDI. The new medication rules do allow for declared antibiotic use but in fact the "procaine" element of procaine penicillin is still very much a banned substance. This substance can take around 21 days to clear from the system and hence after much discussion with Heath and the FEI vets prior to the competition, Heath made the very hard but very necessary decision to withdraw Mystery Whisper from the CDI.

To make matters even worse, the Sydney CIC (one day event) is on this coming weekend and of course Mystery Whisper was entered in that competition as well. Due to the antibiotic use described above and the fact that there is a slim chance that the substance may still be evident within Mystery Whisper's system, Heath has elected to withdraw Mystery Whisper from the CIC as well. Heath is very much aware that medication rules must be followed and he certainly is not willing to take any chances when it comes to even the slightest possibility of returning a positive swab.

All of the above is Heath's own fault, he acknowledges that he has no-one to blame but himself, nonetheless he is very disappointed and quite depressed about the whole situation. Of course there is still a big year of competitions ahead and so Heath is now focussed up on his next few local competitions and of course his next major competition - being Melbourne CCI (three day event) for Mystery Whisper and Melbourne CDI-W for Regardez Moi.

Rozzie and Jive Magic on the other hand did have a great competition in the big tour at the Sydney CDI. Rozzie is delighted with how Jive felt and she is looking forward to continued improvement and a big year in the lead up to the London 2012 Olympics.