BRC Champs report - pics - bruises and hat damage!

ArcticFox

ArcticFox

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Joined
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Location
Midlothian/Borders
www.bryland.co.uk
I qualified with the riding club team for the Novice HT champs at Aston Le Walls last weekend.

We set off on the Friday taking a total of 7.5hours to land at Washbrook farm but all the horses travelled really well and did not look tired from their journey. We landed around 3.30 but couldn't set up camp until after 6pm as the lorry park was so full.

My times weren't too bad as I was the third in our team to go. so on the Sat it was a 6am start to bath, plait and prepare for my 10.30 dressage. My boy seemed very relaxed and we did a good test to finish on 34.7. That left us equal 5th in our arena.

SJ followed at 3pm and it was a lovely bright ring with an alternative fence at number 4, I opted for the direct route and it jumped really nicely. We had a lovely clear round :D

Sunday long format came, the ground was hard but I'm not complaining, most horses were running too fast on the xc and I would rather hard ground than boggy. the first phase of the roads and tracks was 2.5km at 12min 30s. My boy was a bit overexcited and jogged most of the way. I was conscious he needed to walk to conserve energy but just couldn't get him to for the first bit. Steeplechase was brilliant! 1km over 2minutes with 6 fences and jack flew round, we finished 10 seconds inside the time and onto phase C, this was 4.5km in 27mins so I trotted the first 1km to settle him. Sadly it all went wrong here!!

The 1km marker was in a field alongside the steeplechase field and I finally managed to get jack to relax into walk, gave him a pat and altered my stopwatch (I made an error with it before the steeplechase). A horse galloped past on the steeplechase and jack panicked and shot off. I tried very hard to stay on but with the 90degree corner coming up I couldn't stay on.

As I came off I pulled my saddle over, heard my Point two bang and hit the deck. It was very painful! I did spend a bit of time trying to mentally work through it so I could get back on but when the doctor came over I knew I would not be able to ride him. My right arm was agony and I felt like I had wrenched my shoulder and sprained my wrist. :(

Thankfully Jack was unhurt and caught by very helpful people, he doesn't seem bothered by his ordeal although I have yet to sit on him until I'm recovered.

The Doc thought I had broken my wrist so I spent 4.5hours in A&E that afternoon to find I had broken my thumb. the worst bit was my chest pain - at the time it felt like muscular damage but it got worse the following couple of days and on Tues I went to the fracture clinic in Edinburgh to be told that I have probably broken a rib :(

anyway, my black eye has developed, I have bruises on my knee, elbow, both shoulders and wrist to add to my broken thumb!

What puzzled me though was that my P2 seemed to deflate really quickly, and when I looked at it there is dirt all down the right side (I think I landed on my head, right shoulder and side then rolled onto my back and hit my left arm on the ground) and a puncture on the left just below my ribcage, my number bib also has a hole in it and my racesafe is also marked. not sure what I landed on but it was sharp (and expensive!)

New hat on order :)
P2 away for (hopefully) repair
Shoulder pads on the racesafe definitely better than the Kan ones :P


Some pics :)

Professional pics
http://actionreplayphotography.co.uk/page268a.html
Dr -10.15 - 10.30 and the bottom of page 2,
SJ -14.30 - 15.00 then bottom of page 11
Steeplechase -12.00- 13.00, page 12

TheScottishBorders-20110811-00335.jpg

My eye!

TheScottishBorders-20110811-00339.jpg

My knee!

SouthLanarkshire-20110812-00342.jpg

My HS1 hat! look at the casing at the back and you can see one side is pressed in and the other is sticking out. considering this is the back of the hat and I landed on the front I'm interested in the hat report when it comes back :)
 
Thistle said:
Ouch, some gentle hugs for you. Imagine the damage without all the protective gear!
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^^^^

This. There were a few hats over the weekend that didn't pass muster, & therefore failed the BRC hat tagging. I dread to think what the damage would have been to a sub standard hat, & consequently to your head.

Glad you are both on the mend now though, & hope you make it to the championships next year !
 
Looks very painful, sorry you had a splat, but as someone else said, at least you had plenty of protection! I am interested as why you commented on the shoulder pads, though? The Kan pads are so much more substatial than the racesafe, and much thicker.
 
Ouch indeed! Thank goodness you had a good hat etc. What a shame when it was all going BRILLIANTLY to that point too. Hope you are back in the saddle feeling 100% again soon! x
 
ArcticFox said:
The shoulder bruises I have a totally not where the Kan ones sit, they are on my arm where my vaccinations would be. I'm just grateful I was wearing good protection too!
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the pads obviously protected you from some serious gravel rash then, I still like the kan for overall substatial protection. the tops of the shoulder and collarbone is well covered,and longsleeves are recommended for a reason. as long as your protection protected you, though. Damm expensive as you said, Hat, P2 AND a new BP. Still, what price safety? hope you feel less sore soon,
 
Oh no you poor thing!! I'm glad you are OK, just goes to show how having the right safety gear makes a difference. How irritating that it happened due to your horse doing something as simple as spooking. It's quite worrying to think that could have happened out hacking, when no BP or P2 would have been in use.
 
I was thinking that too, I ride out on the roads all the time and the ground at ALW was really hard so my fall was like landing on tarmac.


I don't ever wear a BP or P2 out hacking yet it could easily have happened at home.
 
ArcticFox said:
Oh was he? what did he say?

I met a few medics that day, was he the first one to see me, or the one who took me back to the ambulance :D

Cx
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not sure will ask him lol he said you were brave and he didn't like the P2, but its better than the expo cage :D He was probably the youngest one bless. he is one of our community first responders
 
ArcticFox said:
I wonder why he didn't like the P2? would be interested to know :D

Cx
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To be honest there are a few of us that don't. Plus a few more sitting on the fence
we don't like how they inflate from the inside, so if not fitted perfectly can restrict breathing. Also when they deflate it unstablizes 'C Spine'. not too mention the extra whiplash, especially if you land flat on your back

disclaimer 'Please note these are only personal views of a few medics NOT specialists' :D
 
OUCHY! You poor thing! I'm glad you're back on board and recovering well!

A quick question of confusion though: I was looking at the time allowances you gave for your roads and tracks, and I arrive at an average speed of 12km/h for the 2.5km section, and 10km/h for the 4.5km section. Shouldn't that mean you're trotting most of the way, rather than walking? :confused:
 
Hello Spookypony

During my practice runs leading up to the long format, I worked out that my horse walks out and trots at a good speed and had a few people recommend that you combine walking and trotting for the roads and tracks (like interval training). My plan was to trot to the first KM marker then walk until my stopwatch reached the right time for that distance, then trot to the next one and so on.

In Phase A it would have been 5mins per km, and in phase C we worked out that we should be doing 6min for the first km, then 7min, 7min and 6min for the last with a bit leftover to get to the 10min box

I reached the first km in phase C at 5mins so planned to walk for a minute before trotting to the next km.

Hope that helps (and makes sense)

Cx
 
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Ah, yes, that does make sense! I was just asking because I aim for a speed in that range when hacking, as it's about right for a Pleasure Ride in Endurance (usually about 20km, aiming for 8--11km/h). To make that speed, I have to spend most of the time trotting, although I can have some bits in walk. I imagine if the pony's trot were bigger, I could have longer walk passages (his walk is quite strong).

Thanks, a good bit of education! :) Out of curiosity, how long was the XC at ALW?
 
the time was 5min 1 sec, can't remember the distance but there was about 15 fences, and about 23 jumping efforts (I think)

I believe there was alot of time penalties the day before (Intermediate) due to going too fast and the time seemed very doable.

Cx

ETA: it was also very flat in comparison to Scottish events
 
i did mine a bit different and basically trotted all of phase A until the 2km mark which I reached at 8mins or so. I then had a quick canter and then walked the rest of the way coming in at 11mins40secs.
For phase C we allowed 6mins for the first km to allow for a walk for a couple of mins to recover from the steeplechase bearing in mind we did the first half a km in canter as we slowed down from the gallop. We then did two 5min km's followed by a 10min km for the last one which is basically 100% walking. This meant he only had to trot the final 100m for the vet and came into the 10min box really refreshed and already with only a heart rate of 60 which came to 42 in another 5mins. Worked really well for him.
 
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