ahml100
Well-Known Member
After a winter of hunting, no competitions and the build-up of the upcoming eventing season I decided that it was high time that I and the horse actually went to a couple of parties that did not involve any dogs/horns/large groups (!). Luckily, as the season had finished I was not at all concerned with missing my precious Saturdays. We started with some BSJA at West Wilts doing the Novice and Discovery, I was really not sure what to expect as I had never done BSJA before and the horse had only finished hunting the week-end before. Ha! I thought, I will pop onto the wonderful HHO to at least find out the dress code, ahhh, I had none of that. Bling, no. Dead sheep, no. Certain underwear in a bright colour, most definitely not! Never mind, after all it is not a fashion show but a chance to have a jump
.I was secretly hoping that with the lack of bling nobody would notice me.
The horse warmed up really well, between leg and hand and not falling in or getting excited, I personally was thinking he would be quite tense as we had not been to a show since November. We then went into the ring and I sadly really made his life difficult, one of my (many) habits is that I get really tight through my hands and forget to put my leg on. Though my saint of a horse still jumps I am very conscious that I really need to stop as when the fences get bigger, he will not be always to help me. This meant that as I went into the ring I really gave myself a mental kick to keep my leg on, the good news is I did but I was still too tight through my hand and as a result, he was too restricted and could not follow his jumps though which resulted in poles down. I could not fault him though as he really did brilliantly he was just badly hindered by the idiot on board. This meant that I made sure that I really relaxed my hand going into the Discovery. The improvement was phenomenal, he was jumping so much more freely and actually making a proper shape over the jumps. However, going into the double at six, I sadly was too relaxed and did not collect him enough so we sadly had the first part down, then as a result of that going into the double at nine, I collected him too much and had to put 2 strides in a one stride double resulting in the second part coming down. Overall, though the horse was really going well and I am glad I did it because it shows that when we iron out the riders issues we will do really well! We also did some dressage at ISIS on Sunday which helped us get some ideas in what areas need improvement and this coming Saturday we have got the combined training at West Wilts. Sorry for the length!
The horse warmed up really well, between leg and hand and not falling in or getting excited, I personally was thinking he would be quite tense as we had not been to a show since November. We then went into the ring and I sadly really made his life difficult, one of my (many) habits is that I get really tight through my hands and forget to put my leg on. Though my saint of a horse still jumps I am very conscious that I really need to stop as when the fences get bigger, he will not be always to help me. This meant that as I went into the ring I really gave myself a mental kick to keep my leg on, the good news is I did but I was still too tight through my hand and as a result, he was too restricted and could not follow his jumps though which resulted in poles down. I could not fault him though as he really did brilliantly he was just badly hindered by the idiot on board. This meant that I made sure that I really relaxed my hand going into the Discovery. The improvement was phenomenal, he was jumping so much more freely and actually making a proper shape over the jumps. However, going into the double at six, I sadly was too relaxed and did not collect him enough so we sadly had the first part down, then as a result of that going into the double at nine, I collected him too much and had to put 2 strides in a one stride double resulting in the second part coming down. Overall, though the horse was really going well and I am glad I did it because it shows that when we iron out the riders issues we will do really well! We also did some dressage at ISIS on Sunday which helped us get some ideas in what areas need improvement and this coming Saturday we have got the combined training at West Wilts. Sorry for the length!
