sfward
Well-Known Member
Call me superstitious, but somehow I knew Sunday was going to be a bad day when I saw a lone magpie on the way to the stables at 6am on Sunday morning. The day started off ok; my plaits had managed to stay in from the night before and we actually arrived at the event early for a change. Things started going downhill when I got up to the dressage warm up to find my arena was on a hillside (the worst thing about Aske - not a single piece of flat ground on the entire site - horrible for an unbalanced 5 year old!) Our warm-up started with us careering up and downhill but actually ended up ok so wasn't feeling too stressed out as we went in to do our test. Things were going ok until the first canter when true to form rather than have to carry herself Missie took the easy option of b*****ring off downhill and changing legs when asked to circle, but other than that our test wasn't too horrendous so I thought 38.6 was quite fair.
After a ridiculous 3 hour wait we finally got to do our showjumping; Missie was so relieved to be out of the trailer she went into overdrive, so our round was a little hairy, but miracle of miracles we managed to jump a clear round - our first in BE eventing this year so I was very chuffed
Sadly it didn't last....
The showjumping was running early so foolishly I assumed the XC would be too - WRONG. After about 25 minutes walking round it was finally our turn, by which time I'd got myself in a bit of a flap about fence 7 which was a flowertray on a turn to a skinny under a tree (wasn't at all sure of my steering...!) - not that I can really blame that for what happened...
But anyway, back to the start. Missie decided to have a little nap on the way to the start box, which was rather disheartening as I thought we'd got out of that particular annoying habit. I then got towed left over fence 1 as she made another bid for the lorry park
Right hand down (hard) and we managed to get back on course for fence 2 then had similar problems turning to fence 3 - basically setting the trend for the whole round really which was characterised by very few brakes and some rather dodgy steering, resulting in what was not exactly the prettiest round but I consoled myself as I crossed the finish line with the fact that at least we'd gone clear and managed our first double clear of the season... That is, until Mum came running over looking furious to tell me that I'd manage to miss out fences 5 and 6
Basically in my haste to get pesky fence 7 out of the way I'd forgotten to turn right and do the little loop containing fences 5 and 6
AND even worse I hadn't even noticed
I'm still completely furious with myself for being such an idiot and earning Missie and I the dreaded Big E next to our names on the scoreboard. I feel slightly better having checked the results to find that I'd only have been 10th but even so still feeling a bit sick about it. Poor Missie, imagine what she could do without such a complete numpty for a rider!!
Slightly more importantly I have just under 3 weeks before Bishop Burton to somehow find some brakes and steering for my maniac horse; even with a cheltenham gag on I had worryingly little control on Sunday
I'm hoping she was just in one of those moods that day as she's not usually that bad, but that may be wishful thinking - any suggestions on dealing with extremely strong horses much appreciated!
Oh, and well done if you got this far!!!!
S x
After a ridiculous 3 hour wait we finally got to do our showjumping; Missie was so relieved to be out of the trailer she went into overdrive, so our round was a little hairy, but miracle of miracles we managed to jump a clear round - our first in BE eventing this year so I was very chuffed
Sadly it didn't last....
But anyway, back to the start. Missie decided to have a little nap on the way to the start box, which was rather disheartening as I thought we'd got out of that particular annoying habit. I then got towed left over fence 1 as she made another bid for the lorry park
I'm still completely furious with myself for being such an idiot and earning Missie and I the dreaded Big E next to our names on the scoreboard. I feel slightly better having checked the results to find that I'd only have been 10th but even so still feeling a bit sick about it. Poor Missie, imagine what she could do without such a complete numpty for a rider!!
Slightly more importantly I have just under 3 weeks before Bishop Burton to somehow find some brakes and steering for my maniac horse; even with a cheltenham gag on I had worryingly little control on Sunday
Oh, and well done if you got this far!!!!
S x
