ahml100
Well-Known Member
So after Swalcliffe BE100, the plan was to head to the BE100 at Larkhill to make 100% sure we were as comfortable before we made the brave leap into the realms of BE Novice. Sadly this did not happen! I was meant to go on the Saturday but after being involved in a car accident on the Thursday, testing the landing whilst riding out on Friday, waking up the Saturday morning with delayed concussion and a very stiff neck, we made the decision that eventing was probably not the best idea.
This then led to a near 8 week break from eventing or any form of competition as I was trying to battle through my dissertation then my finals, which, I am pleased to say I have completed whoop whoop! and got my conditional offer for my masters, double whoop!
This then caused Aston to be our first novice, so with my last final on the Friday pm, this meant a very quick journey home, to pack the trailer, learn the test and get the horse ready before we ventured into the land-of-people-who-actually-knew-what-they-were-doing.
Now, as you are all aware off, dressage is not my strong point, or to put it in other words, I would fair better doing a PHD in Quantum Physics then I will ever do in a dressage test. However, in the dressage warm-up, at the land-of-people-who-actually-knew-what-they-were-doing, the warm went strangely well, soft and supple, working strongly into the contact, ignoring the others and looking as if we could actually do dressage. I breathed, I got confident, would this be the day? were we going to get a sub-40? nope, nope, of course not, we walked up the bank, saw the xc course, heard a whistle, saw a horse gallop past and promptly morphed into the thelwell/hackney pony. I walked out sheepishly straight into the path of my trainer, ahh, not quite what I wanted her to see, Alf on the other hand strutted out feeling very pleased with himself! Both my trainer and I knew that this would be a 50+, so we were very, very surprised to get 43.
Now, onto the Show jumping, which, due to uni, I had not been able to make it to any shows to jump a 1.10, but been SJ to school round. He was fantastic though, he really tried with just 2 poles down, one because we lacked a bit of energy to the first oxer, then the second through just being a little quick through the double. However, I really could not fault him as this was his (and mine) first time at this level and he tried just so hard.
now onto xc, we went clear, though, it was very interesting! lets just, say, he did not find it challenging but we decided that bitting work needed to be carried out!
Now onto Tweseldown, a much better dressage, but the dreaded 50+ mark. I was a bit put out, and relied strongly on my stiff upper lip to see me through, but as my trainer said to me, dressage is subjective and remember yourself that it did get better!
Show jumping was going so so well, he was flying everything with foot to spare, until that is, the rider tried to get involved.....yep, the rider walked 6 strides from the oxer to the plank, the rider saw the 6 strides from the oxer to the plank, the rider tried to ride 4...Yes, you read that, as well as failing to ride dressage I had now failed count. This then caused probably my most annoying 4 faults round ever. Even the horse failed to talk to me but just glared at me from the back of the trailer.
Now, as I mentioned at Aston we needed to sort out bitting, we could not find anything that he liked better than his gag, so my trainer decided that we might as well try roundings. Wow! what a difference, he loved it, he has never jumped so well before. He really sought the contact without pulling or grabbing at the bit. He found the course so easy flew the massive trakehner (picture), straight as a arrow through the coffin style fence and galloped boldly over everything else.
So, though on paper, both days were nothing to shout home about, I could not be more happy to have gone clear round our first 2 be novice xc courses. Our next couple of outings is BCA but first, 2 dressage competitions to try and crack the challenge of stressage!
Thanks for reading!
This then led to a near 8 week break from eventing or any form of competition as I was trying to battle through my dissertation then my finals, which, I am pleased to say I have completed whoop whoop! and got my conditional offer for my masters, double whoop!
This then caused Aston to be our first novice, so with my last final on the Friday pm, this meant a very quick journey home, to pack the trailer, learn the test and get the horse ready before we ventured into the land-of-people-who-actually-knew-what-they-were-doing.
Now, as you are all aware off, dressage is not my strong point, or to put it in other words, I would fair better doing a PHD in Quantum Physics then I will ever do in a dressage test. However, in the dressage warm-up, at the land-of-people-who-actually-knew-what-they-were-doing, the warm went strangely well, soft and supple, working strongly into the contact, ignoring the others and looking as if we could actually do dressage. I breathed, I got confident, would this be the day? were we going to get a sub-40? nope, nope, of course not, we walked up the bank, saw the xc course, heard a whistle, saw a horse gallop past and promptly morphed into the thelwell/hackney pony. I walked out sheepishly straight into the path of my trainer, ahh, not quite what I wanted her to see, Alf on the other hand strutted out feeling very pleased with himself! Both my trainer and I knew that this would be a 50+, so we were very, very surprised to get 43.
Now, onto the Show jumping, which, due to uni, I had not been able to make it to any shows to jump a 1.10, but been SJ to school round. He was fantastic though, he really tried with just 2 poles down, one because we lacked a bit of energy to the first oxer, then the second through just being a little quick through the double. However, I really could not fault him as this was his (and mine) first time at this level and he tried just so hard.
now onto xc, we went clear, though, it was very interesting! lets just, say, he did not find it challenging but we decided that bitting work needed to be carried out!
Now onto Tweseldown, a much better dressage, but the dreaded 50+ mark. I was a bit put out, and relied strongly on my stiff upper lip to see me through, but as my trainer said to me, dressage is subjective and remember yourself that it did get better!
Show jumping was going so so well, he was flying everything with foot to spare, until that is, the rider tried to get involved.....yep, the rider walked 6 strides from the oxer to the plank, the rider saw the 6 strides from the oxer to the plank, the rider tried to ride 4...Yes, you read that, as well as failing to ride dressage I had now failed count. This then caused probably my most annoying 4 faults round ever. Even the horse failed to talk to me but just glared at me from the back of the trailer.
Now, as I mentioned at Aston we needed to sort out bitting, we could not find anything that he liked better than his gag, so my trainer decided that we might as well try roundings. Wow! what a difference, he loved it, he has never jumped so well before. He really sought the contact without pulling or grabbing at the bit. He found the course so easy flew the massive trakehner (picture), straight as a arrow through the coffin style fence and galloped boldly over everything else.
So, though on paper, both days were nothing to shout home about, I could not be more happy to have gone clear round our first 2 be novice xc courses. Our next couple of outings is BCA but first, 2 dressage competitions to try and crack the challenge of stressage!
Thanks for reading!
