Santa_Claus
Well-Known Member
So yeah a mixed day but overall good. 
Basically was technically our first novice in the form of the BVRC open ODE at Larkhill. Walking the course yesterday it was a mix of the PN and novice courses so was effectively a 'soft' novice.
Started with the dressage, I thought she did a good test with some seriously nice trot work but a few small errors in the various walks, me and friend thought a early/mid 30s so was really a bit
to get a 41 her second worst ever dressage score. The errors were heavily penalised and overall judge wasn't hugely generous as although a small section it was a good quality field and most were mid late 30s but we weren't last. It's subjective ultimately and so on to the SJing 
Course was nice and flowing but not full up 1m10 although tight on time, I can't complain though on that as I was one of two people that measured it yesterday when building it and we were both within 2m of one another and I measured exactly how it 'should' be ridden!! So with this jumped 1 nicely but landed on the wrong leg, rather than wasting time changing leg (clean changes not our specialty ) I opted for counter canter round the corner to 2 but as we came round she spotted a trailer full of wings and she had an OMG type moment and we sort of crawled sidewards into 2. She hadn't technically stopped yet but wasn't straight and was pretty much under it but regained her concentration and she jumped the upright from near standstill and well totally justifiably knocked the top rail down. Rest of the course jumped brilliantly though. So 4 jumping and 1 time fault.
Lastly the fun bit XC. first few fences didn't have the best strides but got better and better and ate up the course flying round including a fairly meaty proper novice double of skinny logs.
finished 1 sec inside the optimum time. So very pleased with Fleur despite the concentration blip especially as we still came home with a 10th placed rossie (did I mention it was a small section ). might be some photos to follow as friend took some
Basically was technically our first novice in the form of the BVRC open ODE at Larkhill. Walking the course yesterday it was a mix of the PN and novice courses so was effectively a 'soft' novice. Started with the dressage, I thought she did a good test with some seriously nice trot work but a few small errors in the various walks, me and friend thought a early/mid 30s so was really a bit
to get a 41 her second worst ever dressage score. The errors were heavily penalised and overall judge wasn't hugely generous as although a small section it was a good quality field and most were mid late 30s but we weren't last. It's subjective ultimately and so on to the SJing Course was nice and flowing but not full up 1m10 although tight on time, I can't complain though on that as I was one of two people that measured it yesterday when building it and we were both within 2m of one another and I measured exactly how it 'should' be ridden!! So with this jumped 1 nicely but landed on the wrong leg, rather than wasting time changing leg (clean changes not our specialty
) I opted for counter canter round the corner to 2 but as we came round she spotted a trailer full of wings and she had an OMG type moment and we sort of crawled sidewards into 2. She hadn't technically stopped yet but wasn't straight and was pretty much under it but regained her concentration and she jumped the upright from near standstill and well totally justifiably knocked the top rail down. Rest of the course jumped brilliantly though. So 4 jumping and 1 time fault.Lastly the fun bit XC. first few fences didn't have the best strides but got better and better and ate up the course flying round including a fairly meaty proper novice double of skinny logs.
finished 1 sec inside the optimum time. So very pleased with Fleur despite the concentration blip especially as we still came home with a 10th placed rossie (did I mention it was a small section ). might be some photos to follow as friend took some 
