Danni Dunn's season begins with the Sunshine Tour!

Whilst the rest of us are dealing with 'the beast from the east', the fabulous Danni Dunn has started her season already! I was curious to see what she was up to, so decided to follow her on her travels, albeit via the internet and not literally, to report back on her adventures!

So Danni, I saw you drive out the village the other day and you looked like you were heading off somewhere special? Where were you off too?

We are starting off 2018 season at the eventing sunshine tour in Portugal, Barroca d’Alva. The travel took us three days with two night stops. The longest trip I have ever done! It was a lot of fun and amazing how well Binks coped with the journey. After many years of dreaming of going on the sunshine tour at the start of the year, I’m very excited to be here for the first time!! It certainly does beat eventing in the UK at this time of the year. This event is all about Grandslam, (Binks), owned by Stuart Hodder and myself! The goal with Binks is to qualify him to run a 4* event. To put our long journey in to perspective, the first CCI3* in the uk is in June. We want to get ahead of the game!! So this weekend we will be running CIC2* as a warm up run, for the main run next weekend in the CCI3*.

That's one hell of a journey!

Yes! It was a long journey, with lots of laughs and giggles along the way! The first moment starting after fuelling up along the M4 and joining back the motorway the wrong way!! We will blame the 2:45am start for that! Although the journey was pretty smooth we did have a rather rocky boat journey from Dover to Calais. Then we hit the tolls... and there is a fair few of those! We felt like royalty at our second stop with our fabulous Spanish hosts escorting us to the stables.

Who's in your dream team this week?

I’m so lucky to be here with two very good friends (Georgie Hine and Victoria Booth) who have come to help Binks and I! Georgie helped share the driving and Victoria kept us awake, fed and watered (the most important thing). The trip has taken some planning and it’s been all hands on deck in the lead up with preparations and packing. Mum has had to take up a very important role of holding up the fort at home, making sure Zocarla is kept up to scratch ready for Badminton CCI4* at the beginning of May. I’ve have a great team behind the scenes at home, with my coach, Richard Waygood, and my vet and farrier, who have ensured that we are in top shape to be our best when competing.

So when do you start?

The competition starts for me tomorrow with the dressage phase, followed by cross country on Saturday and show jumping on Sunday. My dressage time is 11:37 - fingers crossed Binks behaves himself!!

We're sending you all our best wishes Danni!

We'll keep you all posted on Danni's travels and progress over the next two weeks!