Louisa Milne Home - the journey to Badminton Horse Trials

For Louisa Milne Home the journey to Badminton is a long one.  Based in Kinross, Scotland, Louisa is making the long trip to Gloucestershire by lorry with her 17.1hh gelding King Eider aka ‘Duck’.

In 2013 the pair finished in 50^th place, in 2014 they finished in 29^th place – can Louisa and Duck make it into the top 20 this year?

We caught up with Louisa as she travels the 415 miles from home to Badminton House, Gloucestershire.

How did your morning start today?

We were up very early this morning.  Duck had a good bath last night ready for the event – its not easy keeping a grey horse of his size clean!

At 7am this morning we had a quick dressage session with Liz McKenzie, my trainer.  We ran through some movements and rode bits of the test.  He felt really good this morning working out in the field on the grass and he managed to stay quite clean too!

We had packed the lorry yesterday so Mum, my good friend Grace Moran, who is helping this weekend set off from the yard around 8am.

Is Duck a good traveller?

Generally Duck is a very good traveller – he has to be!  We usually stop a few times en route so that he can stretch his head down.  We will top up his water and his hay and check his happy.

Who does the driving?

I share the driving with Mum so I do get a bit of break.   Living in Scotland, you get used to driving long journeys – it’s part of the job!

What time will you arrive?

The whole journey will take around 9 hours so we hope to arrive by 5pm.   Duck can have a good leg stretch and settle into his new home at Badminton.

We will be keeping up with Louisa and her team throughout the event so check back here for updates.

Update

2.36pm….Trucking along well.  We just swapped drivers so mum is back at the helm! Just coming up to Birmingham now. Spotted signs for congestion but hopefully we will get through fairly quickly! Been a little wild through the Midlands –  lots of wind and rain!

Update

6.15pm… Finally Arrived! Happy boy!