HotToTrot
Well-Known Member
One advantage to working for HMP Belmarsh Law Firm LLP is that, when it's quiet, I am free to come and go as I please. Nobody bats an eyelid if I slope off of a Thursday for a spot of mid-week Astoning. A stone's throw away across the City, at Alcatraz Law Firm LLP, things were also quiet for husband, so we loaded the baby and the horse and off we set for Aston.
Most of my dressage sheets make noises about, well, about my inability to ride, Vito's inability to even pretend to be able to do dressage, but a running themes seems Vito's lack of submission and his lack of forwardness. This, I think, is due in part to my conviction that he is about to race off out of the arena at 800mph, jump over the nearest commenatry box and hurl himself round most of the showjumping track before I can so much say "medium trot". As a result, I fix my hands, block my arms, hold his head in a vice-like half-Nelson and round we'll both go, pulling and leaning on each other for all we're worth.
Given that most of my spare time is spent thinking about three of my favourite things in life, wine, cake and chocolate, I managed to combine the first and the third of these and, adopting the motto of the Alcoholics Anonymous, had a think about the following:
1. the courage to change the things I can change;
2. the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; and
3. the wisdom to know the difference.
I will always be useless at dressage, and I am wonderfully serene about that. I have never had any wisdom and am wise enough to know it. That was 2 and 3 out of the way, but what was I courageous enough to change? Well, I thought truculantly, if he wants to pull, I'll give him nothing to pull against, and if we're not forwards, I'll kick. So I dropped my contact and booted him off towards A. We just about ducked under the 40 barrier with 39.9999999 recurring, but whether this was due to my alcholic motto or a lenient judge, I can't really say - pass me the serenity (or was it courage?).
My friend Arty Type, who featured in exactly this report a year ago, had also come along to support me but, perhaps fortunately for her, I was so overcome by nerves that I was totally unable to speak. Arty Type was likely relieved not to have to interact with me and will probably advise the rest of our friends to come and watch me at horse trials, in the interests of sparing themselves my awful jokes and terrible conversation. "So", she said, brightly, "are you looking forward to the XC?" "No", I mumbled, ducking behind Vito. She made a few more attempts at banter and then, confronted by my consistent stome-walling, went off to play with the baby and ply husband with flapjacks.
There was a huge long wait for the SJ, so Arty Type went off to find cold drinks, husband sat in the sun spotting pros and I, moodily holding Vito under the shade of a tree, considered my "accost a pro to ask about my bogey fence on the XC" strategy. Being Aston, there was, of course, no shortage of pros to accost, and when I spotted Piggy on a very smart Preci-Spark horse, I trotted over. This time, unlike when I'd grabbed Oli, I made no effort to hide my helmet hair or adjust my stock in a becoming manner. Give that Piggy has seen me in my pyjamas, I was sure that she was not going to object to a bit of stray baby dribble on my gloves or the decorative pieces of hay that adorned my hat. Piggy, one of our top riders and super-friendly to boot, gave me some astute advice about the imposing hedge to corner towards the end of the XC and then I set off to warm up.
I don't (can't?) get on Vito from the ground, so I found a flimsy and unstable looking piece of boundary fencing to stand on and then I jumped on. Sadly, Vito moved away quite sharply as I did this and as a result I was stuck, with my left foot in the stirrup and my right leg behind the saddle. Now, Vito is a fantastic horse, but he's quite sharp and, on my fantasy wish list of "horses I'd most like to dangle off the side of whilst impersonating a genetically modified crossbreed of an upside-down Cossack and a tarantula with myxomatosis" I am afraid to confess that Vito does not make my top ten. I felt him tense and realised that this could go pretty wrong. I had to get my foot out of the left stirrup, but it was bearing all of my weight, so I was trapped. I arched away from him, hoping that as I fell, the release of the pressure would free my foot. He trotted off and I rolled over in the dirct, adding sand to the baby dribble and hay that already covered most of my clothing.
My husband was summoned to hold Vito whilst I tried again and then he came over to the warm up to do my fences. Picking up on my nerves, he did what he does best and whacked up a 1.30 oxer. "Just come to this" he said, lightly, "then leave it there". It's a tactic that's worked well in the past but it wasn't enough to jar me out of my catatonia and so we had two down in the ring. For Vito, that's pretty bad, and it was the more galling because one of the two poles was an absolute crash. I think perhaps he saw a long one where I hadn't, but he took the top rail between his forelegs and bucked crossly on landing. It's been a long time since we've had a misser like that and I felt pretty despondent, but my husband brusquely reminded me that, out of all the 1.20 courses and practice fences I've jumped, the rest of the fences and have been absolutely fine and that one sub-optimal jump doth not an existential crisis make.
I used the first few fences on the XC to find a rhythm and then came to no.4. For an inexplicable reason, I'd developed a fear of this whilst in the collecting ring, so I took a pull and set up for it. We therefore had a small pop over it and as we landed, I was glad of that. The water afterwards came up faster than I'd realised, but, because I'd curbed our speed, we turned and came to it nicely. I wish I could say that my instincts were working well and that the pull was a deliberate tactic in order to meet the water well, but I'd be lying and in reality, it was just a result of some unfounded worry that had assailed me for no apparent reason. Vito charged round the course and then we came to my friendly hedge to corner. He took a flyer to the hedge and Piggy's words rang in my ears: "If you take a flyer, you'll get there on 3.5 strides. Just pop in." Not only had we taken a flyer, we were also on the wrong line and we were too far left. Perhaps, I thought, contrary to everything my mother ever told me, perhaps two wrongs are going to make a right and the wide line is going to give me enough room to turn to the corner and still put my four strides in. Well irrespective of whether two wrongs do, as a general philosophical principle, make a right, I was definitely going to make a right, or try my utmost to do so. If I pulled right I'd lose his left shoulder, so I turned my whole body towards the flags and shoved my left leg on as hard as I could. Vito saw the flags, locked on and then flew over the corner. For the first time this season, we'd done it, we'd managed a clear XC at Int.
When i got back, Arty Type was jumping up and down with excitment. "You jumped over an Olympic fence" she screeched. "I saw the special Olympic flags! That fence was at Greenwich! You jumped over a 2012 jump! A jump, an actual jump, that was actually in the Olympics!" Coyly, I tried to bring some perspective. "Yes", I said. "Admittedly, that fence was at Greenwich, but it was probably used as part of a combination, or at the bottom of a cliff, or something, not just sitting on its own in a field, as it is here." She looked at me, suddenly thoughtful. "Technically speaking", she said, slowly, "is there any reason why you couldn't ride at the Olympics?" "Well", I replied, "technically speaking, I'm really rather rubbish. That may hinder my chances..."
Pics not yet through from Aston, so here's Eridge:
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...22426632929_n_zps7d3932e4.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0
Most of my dressage sheets make noises about, well, about my inability to ride, Vito's inability to even pretend to be able to do dressage, but a running themes seems Vito's lack of submission and his lack of forwardness. This, I think, is due in part to my conviction that he is about to race off out of the arena at 800mph, jump over the nearest commenatry box and hurl himself round most of the showjumping track before I can so much say "medium trot". As a result, I fix my hands, block my arms, hold his head in a vice-like half-Nelson and round we'll both go, pulling and leaning on each other for all we're worth.
Given that most of my spare time is spent thinking about three of my favourite things in life, wine, cake and chocolate, I managed to combine the first and the third of these and, adopting the motto of the Alcoholics Anonymous, had a think about the following:
1. the courage to change the things I can change;
2. the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; and
3. the wisdom to know the difference.
I will always be useless at dressage, and I am wonderfully serene about that. I have never had any wisdom and am wise enough to know it. That was 2 and 3 out of the way, but what was I courageous enough to change? Well, I thought truculantly, if he wants to pull, I'll give him nothing to pull against, and if we're not forwards, I'll kick. So I dropped my contact and booted him off towards A. We just about ducked under the 40 barrier with 39.9999999 recurring, but whether this was due to my alcholic motto or a lenient judge, I can't really say - pass me the serenity (or was it courage?).
My friend Arty Type, who featured in exactly this report a year ago, had also come along to support me but, perhaps fortunately for her, I was so overcome by nerves that I was totally unable to speak. Arty Type was likely relieved not to have to interact with me and will probably advise the rest of our friends to come and watch me at horse trials, in the interests of sparing themselves my awful jokes and terrible conversation. "So", she said, brightly, "are you looking forward to the XC?" "No", I mumbled, ducking behind Vito. She made a few more attempts at banter and then, confronted by my consistent stome-walling, went off to play with the baby and ply husband with flapjacks.
There was a huge long wait for the SJ, so Arty Type went off to find cold drinks, husband sat in the sun spotting pros and I, moodily holding Vito under the shade of a tree, considered my "accost a pro to ask about my bogey fence on the XC" strategy. Being Aston, there was, of course, no shortage of pros to accost, and when I spotted Piggy on a very smart Preci-Spark horse, I trotted over. This time, unlike when I'd grabbed Oli, I made no effort to hide my helmet hair or adjust my stock in a becoming manner. Give that Piggy has seen me in my pyjamas, I was sure that she was not going to object to a bit of stray baby dribble on my gloves or the decorative pieces of hay that adorned my hat. Piggy, one of our top riders and super-friendly to boot, gave me some astute advice about the imposing hedge to corner towards the end of the XC and then I set off to warm up.
I don't (can't?) get on Vito from the ground, so I found a flimsy and unstable looking piece of boundary fencing to stand on and then I jumped on. Sadly, Vito moved away quite sharply as I did this and as a result I was stuck, with my left foot in the stirrup and my right leg behind the saddle. Now, Vito is a fantastic horse, but he's quite sharp and, on my fantasy wish list of "horses I'd most like to dangle off the side of whilst impersonating a genetically modified crossbreed of an upside-down Cossack and a tarantula with myxomatosis" I am afraid to confess that Vito does not make my top ten. I felt him tense and realised that this could go pretty wrong. I had to get my foot out of the left stirrup, but it was bearing all of my weight, so I was trapped. I arched away from him, hoping that as I fell, the release of the pressure would free my foot. He trotted off and I rolled over in the dirct, adding sand to the baby dribble and hay that already covered most of my clothing.
My husband was summoned to hold Vito whilst I tried again and then he came over to the warm up to do my fences. Picking up on my nerves, he did what he does best and whacked up a 1.30 oxer. "Just come to this" he said, lightly, "then leave it there". It's a tactic that's worked well in the past but it wasn't enough to jar me out of my catatonia and so we had two down in the ring. For Vito, that's pretty bad, and it was the more galling because one of the two poles was an absolute crash. I think perhaps he saw a long one where I hadn't, but he took the top rail between his forelegs and bucked crossly on landing. It's been a long time since we've had a misser like that and I felt pretty despondent, but my husband brusquely reminded me that, out of all the 1.20 courses and practice fences I've jumped, the rest of the fences and have been absolutely fine and that one sub-optimal jump doth not an existential crisis make.
I used the first few fences on the XC to find a rhythm and then came to no.4. For an inexplicable reason, I'd developed a fear of this whilst in the collecting ring, so I took a pull and set up for it. We therefore had a small pop over it and as we landed, I was glad of that. The water afterwards came up faster than I'd realised, but, because I'd curbed our speed, we turned and came to it nicely. I wish I could say that my instincts were working well and that the pull was a deliberate tactic in order to meet the water well, but I'd be lying and in reality, it was just a result of some unfounded worry that had assailed me for no apparent reason. Vito charged round the course and then we came to my friendly hedge to corner. He took a flyer to the hedge and Piggy's words rang in my ears: "If you take a flyer, you'll get there on 3.5 strides. Just pop in." Not only had we taken a flyer, we were also on the wrong line and we were too far left. Perhaps, I thought, contrary to everything my mother ever told me, perhaps two wrongs are going to make a right and the wide line is going to give me enough room to turn to the corner and still put my four strides in. Well irrespective of whether two wrongs do, as a general philosophical principle, make a right, I was definitely going to make a right, or try my utmost to do so. If I pulled right I'd lose his left shoulder, so I turned my whole body towards the flags and shoved my left leg on as hard as I could. Vito saw the flags, locked on and then flew over the corner. For the first time this season, we'd done it, we'd managed a clear XC at Int.
When i got back, Arty Type was jumping up and down with excitment. "You jumped over an Olympic fence" she screeched. "I saw the special Olympic flags! That fence was at Greenwich! You jumped over a 2012 jump! A jump, an actual jump, that was actually in the Olympics!" Coyly, I tried to bring some perspective. "Yes", I said. "Admittedly, that fence was at Greenwich, but it was probably used as part of a combination, or at the bottom of a cliff, or something, not just sitting on its own in a field, as it is here." She looked at me, suddenly thoughtful. "Technically speaking", she said, slowly, "is there any reason why you couldn't ride at the Olympics?" "Well", I replied, "technically speaking, I'm really rather rubbish. That may hinder my chances..."
Pics not yet through from Aston, so here's Eridge:
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...22426632929_n_zps7d3932e4.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0
A very big, well deserved pat on the back 
