Bananaman
Well-Known Member
Just a quick update on our day yesterday.
First of all it was lovely to meet up with so many HHOers. FinnMcCool, Law, MatB, HorseGroupie, The Carthorse and daughter..........think I've remembered all! It was lovely to put faces to names and everyone was really friendly.
Rhiannon warmed up beautifully and we went down to do our test in the drizzle with hope in our hearts!
Once I'd got the leg yields out of the way, I allowed myself the luxury of thinking to myself, 'hmmm, this isn't going too badly', when wham......we completely fluffed one of our simple changes, dropped into trot early and couldn't stop!
Bu**er, I thought!
Overall I was pleased with our performance, given that only a month ago things were going so badly that I wouldn't have wanted to do a Prelim on her and she was quite poorly over Christmas with the snots, so I think we are on the way back up.
The marking was quite odd with two judges liking our test and one definately not so we finished an overall position of 13th out of 40 starters and a score of 67.2%
The simple change cost us dearly but there you go......if I'd only used my short, fat legs!!!
Then the Medium. Again, she felt good, the test was going well and we set sail across the diagonal in Medium canter and suddenly she throws her head up and runs through the bridle!
She's never done that before, so I don't know where that came from, I never felt it coming at all! Another bu**er moment!
Otherwise all else was OK. Again differences of opinion between the judges but this time we placed 6th with 66.9%, so
I was a bit cross with the judge in the medium test who gave us a 5 for our collected walk saying that it was in two parts not 20m in one stretch. As I did collected walk from A round to E before riding a 15m half circle in extended walk, I'd have thought that I'd have done more than enough collected. The other two judges didn't have a problem with it. It certainly cost us one place as we were tied with the girl in 5th but we lost out on the artistic marks.
Still, after the last few months that have been very wobbly, I was very happy with my girl overall and now. although I'm holding my eyes open with matchsticks atm, I have to turn everything around and make the 5hr round trip again tomorrow at 6.30am!
I'm getting too old for this!!!
First of all it was lovely to meet up with so many HHOers. FinnMcCool, Law, MatB, HorseGroupie, The Carthorse and daughter..........think I've remembered all! It was lovely to put faces to names and everyone was really friendly.
Rhiannon warmed up beautifully and we went down to do our test in the drizzle with hope in our hearts!
Once I'd got the leg yields out of the way, I allowed myself the luxury of thinking to myself, 'hmmm, this isn't going too badly', when wham......we completely fluffed one of our simple changes, dropped into trot early and couldn't stop!
Overall I was pleased with our performance, given that only a month ago things were going so badly that I wouldn't have wanted to do a Prelim on her and she was quite poorly over Christmas with the snots, so I think we are on the way back up.
The marking was quite odd with two judges liking our test and one definately not so we finished an overall position of 13th out of 40 starters and a score of 67.2%
The simple change cost us dearly but there you go......if I'd only used my short, fat legs!!!
Then the Medium. Again, she felt good, the test was going well and we set sail across the diagonal in Medium canter and suddenly she throws her head up and runs through the bridle!
Otherwise all else was OK. Again differences of opinion between the judges but this time we placed 6th with 66.9%, so
I was a bit cross with the judge in the medium test who gave us a 5 for our collected walk saying that it was in two parts not 20m in one stretch. As I did collected walk from A round to E before riding a 15m half circle in extended walk, I'd have thought that I'd have done more than enough collected. The other two judges didn't have a problem with it. It certainly cost us one place as we were tied with the girl in 5th but we lost out on the artistic marks.
Still, after the last few months that have been very wobbly, I was very happy with my girl overall and now. although I'm holding my eyes open with matchsticks atm, I have to turn everything around and make the 5hr round trip again tomorrow at 6.30am!
I'm getting too old for this!!!
