lex2501
Well-Known Member
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Its now a week after the long awaited Badminton Grassroots Championships and I cant believe its over! When I last checked in with the HHO crew we had just returned from a slightly frustrating run at Larkhill where a silly 20 penalties had cost us a BE100 win. Our final event before the Championships was the BE100 at Hambleden where this time we made a complete shambles of the show jumping...
Billy had been a bit wild in the warm up and for some reason I had let the nerves get the better of me and stupidly reverted to the bad old habit of sticking the handbrake. He can give the feeling of running away with me a bit, and I had been a bit crowded in the warm up and didnt give myself time to take a deep breath and think about what I was doing and the new riding techniques I have worked so hard on over the winter are not quite installed as instinctive yet so the old habits took over. An underpowered canter left us with a rather embarrassing cricket score and our confidence in tatters but luckily he jumped the most brilliant cross country round so at least the Larkhill demons had been laid to rest
Hambleden Photos:
I had a couple of jumping lessons with my trainer Dan Jocelyn after Hambleden where we worked on repairing our confidence but with just over a week before Badminton it just wasnt enough time to get us where I really wanted to be in terms of our confidence over coloured poles before the event. Dan even had a sit on him and it was very interesting to hear him describe him as quirky and for him to admit that he isnt as easy as he looks (phew!) - although of course he had him soaring over an enormous course looking like a million dollars! He is a sensitive soul, and unfortunately his confidence seems to be as fragile as mine so it can be a slippery slope when things go awry.
I had some psychological hurdles to get over in the run up to Badminton too. It was very hard not to feel disheartened by the lack of form whilst fellow grassroots competitors seemed to be unbeatable (ahem, Star) so I tried to get into my Billy Bubble as much as I could. I also booked a session with the BRILLIANT Jo Davies who is a Sports Psychologist and fellow HHOer and she really helped me by pointing out that I needed to ignore the "uncontrollables" around me focus on things that I could control and in effect that meant making sure I had processes in place that helped me deal with potential threats/weaknesses, and make the most of our strengths/opportunities. It put me in a really positive frame of mind, and I decided to ditch the daydreams about winning the title and instead I decided upon two goals:
1- Earn a completion rosette
2- Wake up on Thursday morning with a killer hang over
Finally the long awaited day dawned!! The weather forecast was not looking too appealing so the lorry was loaded with mountains of (mainly Horseware!) kit to prepare us for every possible eventuality and we made the trip up the M4 to the beautiful Badminton Estate on the Tuesday morning ahead of a late afternoon dressage. It was such a fabulous feeling arriving at the event in one piece, and breathing a sigh of relief for just making it to the event having tried and failed for the 5 previous years! I took Billy for a quick leg stretch before settling him in his very smart stable which Horseware very kindly decorated with stable banners before setting up our campsite for the week!
I have spent a lot of time up at Dan Jocelyns yard training since December and he has become a good friend and was incredibly kind and offered to come up and support me on both days of the competition. Dan was instrumental in helping me get Billy exactly where I wanted him in the warm up before heading into the arena which was pretty impressive given that we havent had any flat lessons with Dan previously! Billy went on to produce one of the best tests of his career. He stayed forwards, consistent in the frame and as uphill as is possible for a croup high chap! He is not a flashy horse by any means, but he stayed with me and didnt miss a beat so I was absolutely thrilled with him when we came out. I have to admit that I had had a couple of swigs on a bottle of rum before I had got on to calm the nerves and it was a bit of a shock how wobbly I was when I got off oops! Luckily our centre lines werent as wobbly!! Everyone was slightly underwhelmed when the scoreboard showed a score of 31.5 with lots of horses in the 20s, and even one on 18 but I was pleased that Dan agreed we couldn't really have done any more, and at least I wasnt going into the jumping phases with the pressure of being at the top of the leaderboard!
I went down and quietly popped the practice fence while no one was around and Billy was jumping really well so I put him away and Team Billy and 3 bottles of Champagne went on a course walk!! Billy really is a great little cross country horse so nothing overly concerned me, but it was technical, there was plenty to jump and plenty of places to be caught out. It also struck me how long the course was with an optimum time of 7 minutes which is much longer than anything Billy has done so I was aware that I would need to ride him sympathetically. The double of open corners 3 from home worried me a little for that reason, as I had no idea how much horse I would have left at the end.
TBC...
Its now a week after the long awaited Badminton Grassroots Championships and I cant believe its over! When I last checked in with the HHO crew we had just returned from a slightly frustrating run at Larkhill where a silly 20 penalties had cost us a BE100 win. Our final event before the Championships was the BE100 at Hambleden where this time we made a complete shambles of the show jumping...
Billy had been a bit wild in the warm up and for some reason I had let the nerves get the better of me and stupidly reverted to the bad old habit of sticking the handbrake. He can give the feeling of running away with me a bit, and I had been a bit crowded in the warm up and didnt give myself time to take a deep breath and think about what I was doing and the new riding techniques I have worked so hard on over the winter are not quite installed as instinctive yet so the old habits took over. An underpowered canter left us with a rather embarrassing cricket score and our confidence in tatters but luckily he jumped the most brilliant cross country round so at least the Larkhill demons had been laid to rest
Hambleden Photos:
I had a couple of jumping lessons with my trainer Dan Jocelyn after Hambleden where we worked on repairing our confidence but with just over a week before Badminton it just wasnt enough time to get us where I really wanted to be in terms of our confidence over coloured poles before the event. Dan even had a sit on him and it was very interesting to hear him describe him as quirky and for him to admit that he isnt as easy as he looks (phew!) - although of course he had him soaring over an enormous course looking like a million dollars! He is a sensitive soul, and unfortunately his confidence seems to be as fragile as mine so it can be a slippery slope when things go awry.
I had some psychological hurdles to get over in the run up to Badminton too. It was very hard not to feel disheartened by the lack of form whilst fellow grassroots competitors seemed to be unbeatable (ahem, Star
) so I tried to get into my Billy Bubble as much as I could. I also booked a session with the BRILLIANT Jo Davies who is a Sports Psychologist and fellow HHOer and she really helped me by pointing out that I needed to ignore the "uncontrollables" around me focus on things that I could control and in effect that meant making sure I had processes in place that helped me deal with potential threats/weaknesses, and make the most of our strengths/opportunities. It put me in a really positive frame of mind, and I decided to ditch the daydreams about winning the title and instead I decided upon two goals:1- Earn a completion rosette
2- Wake up on Thursday morning with a killer hang over
Finally the long awaited day dawned!! The weather forecast was not looking too appealing so the lorry was loaded with mountains of (mainly Horseware!) kit to prepare us for every possible eventuality and we made the trip up the M4 to the beautiful Badminton Estate on the Tuesday morning ahead of a late afternoon dressage. It was such a fabulous feeling arriving at the event in one piece, and breathing a sigh of relief for just making it to the event having tried and failed for the 5 previous years! I took Billy for a quick leg stretch before settling him in his very smart stable which Horseware very kindly decorated with stable banners before setting up our campsite for the week!
I have spent a lot of time up at Dan Jocelyns yard training since December and he has become a good friend and was incredibly kind and offered to come up and support me on both days of the competition. Dan was instrumental in helping me get Billy exactly where I wanted him in the warm up before heading into the arena which was pretty impressive given that we havent had any flat lessons with Dan previously! Billy went on to produce one of the best tests of his career. He stayed forwards, consistent in the frame and as uphill as is possible for a croup high chap! He is not a flashy horse by any means, but he stayed with me and didnt miss a beat so I was absolutely thrilled with him when we came out. I have to admit that I had had a couple of swigs on a bottle of rum before I had got on to calm the nerves and it was a bit of a shock how wobbly I was when I got off oops! Luckily our centre lines werent as wobbly!! Everyone was slightly underwhelmed when the scoreboard showed a score of 31.5 with lots of horses in the 20s, and even one on 18 but I was pleased that Dan agreed we couldn't really have done any more, and at least I wasnt going into the jumping phases with the pressure of being at the top of the leaderboard!
I went down and quietly popped the practice fence while no one was around and Billy was jumping really well so I put him away and Team Billy and 3 bottles of Champagne went on a course walk
!! Billy really is a great little cross country horse so nothing overly concerned me, but it was technical, there was plenty to jump and plenty of places to be caught out. It also struck me how long the course was with an optimum time of 7 minutes which is much longer than anything Billy has done so I was aware that I would need to ride him sympathetically. The double of open corners 3 from home worried me a little for that reason, as I had no idea how much horse I would have left at the end.
TBC...
