BD ROR Champs

leflynn

leflynn

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Morning, occasional poster/mostly lurker as think most posts about me and theepony are dull and consist of 'he's a total nit' 'aww boy done good' 'ooh managed to do something well' 'argh total rubbish' in varying amounts!

Just wanted a bit of advice from those used to doing bigger shows as we seem to have managed to qualify for the BD ROR nationals at Houghton in Sept (only intro and prelim). Have a plan of attack for the pre show, lessons/comps etc and thankfully le pony is a good egg and is one of those lovely sensible types of TB, travels well (which is good as 4.5 hour journey), isn't bothered by being in a diff stable, likes going to parties blah blah.

He does however have alove of being an utter spooky nitwit in indoor venues, thankfully he is better than ever but a NEW HUGE indoor venue is likely to cause a bit of bother (working on this). He won't be phased by a busy warmup either thankfully, but my question after the ramble is what is the format - do you get any arena time before the comp however brief?
We'll be arriving on the Fri eve and classes are both Saturday, if not time fri eve/sat am to have pootle I'll ponder doing a warmup class (which would be 3 in total, normally do 2) so that the spooks are gone.

Any other top tips for travelling/staying away/big shows welcome as only been dressaging seriously for the last 18 months and the pet plans were held at our local venue last year and the only other big trip was to horsepital for an eye op! I have got my stabling forms, entry form, commentary for :eek: and a list has begun (forward planning or what!)

Pics of my handsome boy just because ;)

red rossettes by Laura, on Flickr

13443081_10209590044173159_608117192878730080_o by Laura, on Flickr
 
Well done on qualifying. We went last year to Houghton Hall - it was at Vale View before. The championship classes are indoors and they did an arena walk and there is a small warm up inside as well so plenty of chance for your horse to have a look around. There was an outdoor arena for the warm up classes with the working in area alongside it. We arrived late on the Saturday night in the dark and couldn't find Houghton Hall and took about 30 minutes driving around to find it but if you are arriving in daylight you will be fine. They have various sections of stabling there, all nice quality though you do have to buy your shavings from them, not take your own. The water tap was a long walk form ours! There is a cafe which does good food and it all very new. All finalists get lovely rosettes and the photographer last year was very reasonably priced for nice photos. Hope that all helps.
 
Perfect thank you! We're travelling down Friday Pm so will arrive in light thankfully, will buy shavings down there anyway as the car will be full of tack/kit/feed/haylage etc. He occasionally cribs so I had to check they would be okay for him to stable and they are as long as I am in the indoor barn (suits me tbh), can't wait!
 
Lovely boy! I would just get to as many indoors as you can in the meantime. Be aware of things like - sunbeams, mirrors, people behind glass, raised judging and viewing platforms, and gaps in the wall where he can see outside. All can be potentially scary. Find a local venue with all of those and get him totally chilled there :p

Best of luck!! He's really beautiful. You must post a report! :D

We want to do this but the qualifiers are all miles away, until you get to elem where you can just send sheets. It's our one motivation for trying to move up lol!
 
Ironic we qualified in an indoor venue really! Thank you for the lovely comments will certainly do a post once its over, just so chuffed we qualified against some nice horses and got some nice scores and comments from a couple of tough judges :D He did manage to spook at the end of the centre line at some flowers (score of 4 *rolleyes* but that was him just being a plonker and checking I hadn't switched off..)

We have 2 indoor dressage comps and a couple of hires booked in at the largest indoor spooky venues in prep lol! I'm also aiming to do some more despooking at home with random objects while schooling, plus our instrictor is very good at teaching me anti spook techniques as he like to mix it up esp if he's not listening. Still keeps you on your toes as its an evasion rather than actually being scared of anything *shakes head* Still at least we're more confident of getting past A and down the centre line as at a first time in an indoor test he ditched me before A (unaff), got back on and argued round most of it... Keeps you on your toes lol :D

Thats defo an incentive! I was hoping to squeak into the intro but got quite a shock when we won that and the prelim too, would still have gone for the intro class alone for experience :)
 
I went last year too - hoping I might qualify at Pachesham but this season hasn't gone according to plan so who knows? Mine took a dislike to the judging tables - even though she'd seen them at the arena walk they suddenly became much spookier with JUDGES sitting at them...... If I do enter I will be taking a folding table and table-cloth to the local indoor arena beforehand!

Otherwise I think the other posters have covered it. It's a great weekend :)
 
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