Ever wondered where that saying comes from? It comes from the Holy ancient city of Toledo - just out from Madrid. It's a city that is a World Heritage site and was once the capital of the Spanish Empire. Toledo has been populated since the Bronze Age and its a place where the religious cultures of the Moors, Jews, Arabs and Catholics are entwined throughout history. It's a very popular spot with the tourists in Spain and it was also the city that hosted my next show - the Toledo CDI 3*.

Before I set off from Barcelona I was very excited by the arrival from England of my new Horse Van - I am extremely lucky to have the support of my owners Erin and Warwick Mortimer and their daughter-in-law Larissa's company Horsevans.co.nz - we call this one the "Wookiemobile". See the photo below - it is a slick silver two horse model - on a brand new chassis - it's not often I get to drive something new! My very first journey was straight to Madrid from Barcelona - taking the coastal road thru Valencia. The van is a right hand drive model as it will eventually be making its way back to New Zealand. I'm not that experienced driving on the "wrong" side of the road, but I'm happy to report I made the 1500km round trip unscathed! Wookie travels really well in the van - he's a huge horse, but fits in easily and there was a ton on room between his butt and the wall so no rubbing at all (the horses face backwards and seem to travel very well that way).

I was so excited driving across to the show because I was also picking up my great friend Michelle Zielazo who was flying in from Christchurch New Zealand to give me a hand and do some exploring. It was a bit of a mission picking her up from the airport though, with my cell phone deciding it wouldn't work and some frustrating moments parked in police only car parking zones. But once Michelle was safely in the cab we headed for the show grounds - or so we thought... What should have been an hour long drive took us three hours with poor Wookie coming along for the Tiki-Tour. The main problem was not asking for directions (Michelle speaks perfect Spanish!) but the fact that the show schedule didn't actually have the right address on it and we went off in all directions!

When we finally did get to the show grounds it was an instant relief - and we got Wookie settled in - in the row just behind all the other horses from BarcelonaHorses.com who had made the journey that day too... Our loosebox ended up being surrounded by Beatriz Ferrer-Salat's horses. For those of you who don't know she is a former Olympic medallist, is about as close to Spanish royalty as you can get without actually being a princess, and has the most amazing horses one can imagine. She was accompanied by an entourage of people, including her super pro-groom Robbie - who thought it was less than amusing having his champion horses stabled beside us "Gypsies". OK - to give you a better idea of what I mean - Team Ferrar-Salat arrive in a $1 million NZD lorry with triple pop-out pop-up bits. The matching trunks they pull off the lorry are incredible - they line the tack room with red carpet and proceed to fill it with every known gadget for a competition horse's well being - there was thermal this and magnetic that, ultra-sound for this and massage thingies for that. We are stabled right there with three brushes, a bale of hay and a bridle and saddle. And no tack room to keep them out of sight in. Robbie nearly died, but we befriended him anyway and after a while Beatriz took pity on us and became friendly too... Robbie turned out to be great fun - I worked out I'd met him about 15 years previous and it was funny to recall those circumstances. We had some good nights at the bar with him and may or may not have had a tour through that magnificent lorry at midnight! There's a photo of Robbie on here doing his thing - treating a horse post-competition.

Unfortunately the show didn't go according to plan - poor Wookie got sick and was running a temperature and was off his feed for a few days - and was still feeling off colour when we started in the Grand Prix. At home I would have been giving him B-Boost paste etc, but there was nowhere to buy any remedies so we just had to go with what we had - nothing. We tried to keep him happy by taking him to the round pen each morning and night for a roll and a run around, and we even let him befriend the donkeys whom he loved to go and lick (OK, and chew the ears off - literally!)

To say I wasn't confident on the day of the GP was an immense understatement. Although our training in Barcelona had been going well, I knew once we were at the show grounds it was all falling apart. I am normally a very strong rider mentally but a number of personal issues and various other things had really eaten away at my confidence and I seemed to have lost all feel for the horse. Not to mention the pressure I was under to perform. It was $700 just to do this test - and I needed it to go right. A lot was hinged on the 6 minutes of that test on a horse that was feeling decidedly under the weather and a rider that was falling apart at the seams. I'm sure you can guess what happened - it was a disaster right from the get go - a mistake in the first half pass 30 seconds into it meant I was never going to score well and it just seemed to unravel from there. There were some highlights - perfect one and two tempi's but Wookie was behind my leg a lot of the time and neither of us were having a good time. So after the canter pirouettes I halted and saluted the judges - this the right etiquette to tell them that you have retired from the test. I managed to get back to the stables without too many tears - just relieved it was all over and the pressure was off. I'm not a rider that is used to failing - and I don't take to it well...

So it was time to regroup - I couldn't ride in the Special or the Kur as I didn't post a score in the Grand Prix - so I had a week to kill before the next competition started and a lot of thinking to do. Wookie eventually got back to normal and started feeling a lot better, but I wasn't prepared to run him in the Grand Prix in the second week of competitions - electing instead to ride in the Small Tour classes at Prix St Gorges - Inter 1 level to give us a chance to get it all together in the ring. What we really needed was to go and do some local shows to get to know each other better, but there was simply no time to do so... Wookie is a fantastic horse with plenty of talent, but I just haven't gelled with him as quickly as I had hoped I might - he's a big horse and not quite what I'm used to.

So the second competition came and I'm pleased to report that it went much better - but mistakes in some of the flying change work (he doesn't make them in the GP!) saw us only finish mid-field which was a shame - but still, all we need is more time together... I had a spot of bother in that I needed to do a freestyle - I only travelled over with a GP one, but I found one I had stored on my I-pod which was for the right test - the only trouble is it has three tempi changes on a curve - something I have never practiced with Wookie. So in my warm-up I rode the lines from the test and it went just fine - till I got in the ring and he decided he had no idea what I could possibly want and we made a botch up of it on both attempts. Still it was fun to ride a musical there and the sound system was superb!

Agusti and Annabel from Barcelona Horses joined me for the second week - with Annabel doing a great job to win the Intermediare I class and the Freestyle on the lovely mare Alfa. Agusti and I battled it out in our own mini competition - I just beat him in one class and he just got ahead of me in the other. He was riding the outstanding young prospect Cazurro - I have some photos of him on this blog too - a really interesting colour - kind of grey with a brown face! He was placed at the World Championships for young horses and is a sure fire top Grand Prix mount in years to come.

Michelle and I had a great time looking around Toledo - except for the bus tour - if you are ever in Toledo - a word of warning - the double-decker city tour tourist bus is the worst I've been on by far (and I've been on plenty over the years - London, Dublin, York, New York, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon etc). We spent an interesting afternoon in the Military Museum and took a mini train ride around the city too. We spend the first week in a cheap hotel with stunning views and the last week we slept in the van to save our pennies.

Michelle fell in love with one of the top Spanish riders Jordi Domingo - and his wonderful horse Prestige. He's the hot guy in the photo on this blog! I must say in Spain it's the opposite to NZL - the riders are nearly all guys and most you certainly wouldn't mind bringing home in your suitcase. We also made some other friends - like the lovely Asbjorg Anderson in the photo with the dog sitting up on her stallions back.

There is a photo here of Michelle and I with another couple - Crazy Daisy and Coto - they ran the bar / restaurant at Toledo. One night we had an impromptu Sangria party that lasted till 1am. They kept filling up the bucket (!) with Sangria (until the last few rounds which were minus the juice and lemonade mixers and were just straight alcohol with red wine for colour). We sat around drinking and talking rubbish while I practiced my rude Spanish words and a few other random guys joined in the fun. Food was bought out and in the end 20 litres of Sangria was consumed. It will be a favourite memory of mine for some time to come.

There were some amazing tests performed at Toledo from some great horses and riders. My favourite horse was the Sandro Hit stallion Santana who is missing one eye - he won both his GP freestyle tests to an amazing soundtrack of U2 music that gave me goose bumps. He was so much like Whisper it was unbelievable and it really made me miss the lovely black stallion that was in my life for such a short time. His rider Minna Telde was an inspiration to watch.

Michelle and I put together a little video of Wookie and I at Toledo- I hope you enjoy it!