A 3 in 1 Donkey Eventing report!

kirstyhen

kirstyhen

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First up was the Arena Eventing Finals at Vale View a couple of weeks ago, Moot and I managed to sneak in on a wild card entry for our fourth place a month or so ago, which also happened to be the same day I fell off in the open and I wheels fell off slightly afterwards when it came to my confidence jumping. So to say I was feeling apprehensive would be a slight understatement :D My nerves were not in any way settled by walking the course, in fact I was ready to turn right around and go home after seeing it! The fence I fell off at was there and whilst it was a tad smaller, I was still bricking it! There was also a corner which in my mind grew to resemble the Badminton open corners with the sawn off back rails... :eek:
Donkey Face warmed up super, but I was still pooping myself somewhat by the time I was called into the ring! Of course I shouldn't have doubted the super Moot, she didn't put a foot wrong the entire time and jumped her little socks off, including taking over for the corner. Unfortunately her jockey was a pleb in the water, lost her knitting on the jump in and grabbed anything she could find on landing, meaning Mally very obediently turned a circle and we got 20p for a run out :( We also got given a fence down on the XC in our results, but I was positive she had gone clear. Hey ho, no results to write home about but I was over the moon with her :D
I make no apologies for my style in any of these pictures, I rode extremely defensively because I was cacking my pants, so bog off if you don't like my Mary King-esq position :p

http://www.everybodysmile.biz/hoofp...1.php?Cat=325-Kirsten Hendry All That malarky

If the link doesn't go to my photos, then I was number 325, find them yourself if you care that much :D Obviously the grey pony in there isn't us!

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Then last weekend we returned to Vale View for two Novice tests, 27 and 34. Mally really has not grasped medium paces, whilst they are getting better, she does tend to run rather than lengthen so we don't tend to do that well in Novice tests! Added to the fact that she was an absolute witch to school the night before (to the point I thought I would come off if she kept it up for much longer, not something I ever think on Moot!) I had very little hope of a good result, and was using the outing more to expose her to white boards a bit more!
Once again, I should have had more faith! She was a completely different pony after our exchange of words the night before and warmed up beautifully, unfortunately this meant I had got on WAY too early and given how hot it was, Moot was fairly pooped by our second test. She was extremely grown up, as she desperately wanted to have a huge spook at the judges, but kept a lid on it when asked very well. This meant she came 2nd in N27 with 67.86% despite her idiot jockey getting an error of course again :o and 5th in N34 with 64.58%, by which point she was totally flat from being worked into the ground by her cruel owner ;)

Novice 27 - I know what's wrong with it, no need for CC, I have an instructor for that :p
http://youtu.be/tze2_zQ8NZU

I have started making sure that she is given a mint before and after schooling and her bit and mouth and coated in Bit Butter, which does seem to help her relax her gob a bit better. I also have decided to listed to music when warming up, so I focus, rather than watch everyone who I think is better than me. My warm up playlist contains rather alot of Beyonce, specially for my little Diva Moot ;)

http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/s720x720/561813_10152003398755431_1086157255_n.jpg

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Onto Shelford Manor BE100 yesterday and we were finally out eventing again!! :D We haven't had a run since Shelford 1 in May :eek: We have done most of our training in the horizontal rain recently, so were really lucky with the weather yesterday as our actual test conditions were exactly the same :rolleyes: It absolutely lashed it down for our Dressage, which didn't help our lack of ability in that area :o so we got a 37.5 and lots of 'swinging quarters to left' and 'shortening stride' comments, which given the conditions was hardly surprising. In reality I would have been pleased to get under 40 a few months ago, so I should be happy :D

http://youtu.be/PLSxwZHeBEk

It continued to lash it down for our Show Jumping, so after an extremely short warm up (Ha!) I went in and tried to avoid getting hooky to give her the best shot possible. We had an unlucky pole at 3, she just dropped off around the corner slightly and I never rode forwards again so she brushed it down in front. We managed to finish with just the 4 faults though, so pretty chuffed with that in the weather! :D

http://youtu.be/5cwsgLqc2KM


Then I spotted some blue in the horizon so waited a wee bit to go XC, which also gave me time to change my jods that were totally see through by this point, exposing my blue (very large, thankfully) pants to the world! :o
Tootled down to the warm up to be told I had one to go :eek: so had a quick whizz round and set off. Not only has Moot not been Eventing since May, but we haven't managed a XC schooling session either, so my baby pony had to remember pretty dam quick what it was all about.
As ever, she was fabulous. We were in the last few to go around, so I tried to avoid that cut up patches infront of the fences, which meant a few dodgy lines and her getting me out of a couple of sticky situations. She also added in a few extra fences, by jumping the puddles that had collected in the dips :D By the time we were heading home, she felt awesome :D We finished with 2.4TPs as going fast doesn't seem to be my strong point!
We managed to finish in 7th on 43.9, so I was really thrilled with my little Donkey.

The pro pictures haven't gone up yet, but there is a cracking one of our show jumping with my bright blue pants fully on show :D

I have made the decision to not bother trying to get a Novice run this year, we just haven't had enough runs and there is no rush to get there. So we are going to finish having done a solid season at BE100 and then think about stepping up next season.

Well one for wading through all that, as a reward you may help yourself to some Lemon Cake made by my lovely groom Sophie :D
 
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Clever pony, and clever you :D She's just brilliant, such a credit to you. She clearly loves her work :D
 
Urgh what horrible weather! She looks so much better in the SJ video - far less wahooooooo and more 'I'm a SJer don't you know' ;)
 
How dare you call the gorgeous Moot a donkey???? :eek:

The weather in that SJing vid is disgusting! Well done both of you for still getting out and jumping! ;)

Sounds like you have had a very good 3 outings! She sounds like she was super as per usual XC! What are your plans for the rest of the year?
 
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