‘Border issues must be resolved'

Laura Tomlinson on paperwork headaches and a late start to the season

- Polly Bryan

SINCE last writing my column, I have travelled to two international competitions with my up-and-coming grand prix horse Fallatjin. The first was in Belgium at the end of April, the second here in the UK. The latter was, of course, far easier, so thank you to all involved in putting on the CDI3* at Wellington earlier this month.

For our trip to Belgium, we had decided to offer Emile Faurie’s horses a lift on the lorry as I only had the one horse travelling. To cut a long story short, my horse arrived in Belgium after over 17 hours of travelling (instead of the intended 11), while Emile’s were left in Calais.

Luckily “Finn” arrived at the show still in very good nick, despite having gone from having travelling buddies to then suddenly being on his own, and dealing with an abnormally long journey – thank you to my very diligent groom.

Gareth Hughes had smugly left ahead of us and, on arrival, he jokingly said to me, “That’s one way to get rid of the competition.” Very true Gareth!

“They were the right horses with the right paperwork, and what happened was totally unnecessary”