tigers_eye
Well-Known Member
Just back from our last run of the season. Burghley I deemed too big an ask at this stage, Pau, although earlier than usual, is still a very long way away, would involve more than a week off work, and we don't have any money left, so decision made! Plus this way he will just have an easy 6 weeks or so then we can really focus on some dressage and show-jumping training and competing over the winter.
It was an absolute pleasure to drive to an event less than two hours away and use less than half a tank of diesel! We arrived to beautiful sunny weather on Thursday and trotted up in the afternoon. Breda always has plenty of other disciplines going on, and they were hosts to the 4 in-hand European Driving Championships this weekend. Like all good eventers William thought these were a great excuse, he took particular exception to any carriage pulled by greys, but boy did I get some FAB expression in his flatwork when schooling him Thursday afternoon! Here are some of the drivers during their marathon (these were the ponies who ran earlier, champs was for horses):
We had a fairly late dressage Friday, he warmed up not bad, lately our work has focussed on insisting on him staying soft and through, if necessary pushing his hindquarters out to overcome him blocking. His test was not bad, I was cross that I allowed him to shift me in the first counter canter so he changed, and we had very little space to regain counter canter then do our flying change, which meant that it was late behind. I do find it hard to understand how 2 weeks ago in a 4*-level test he was capable of 7s for all his lateral work and this week in a 3* level test he is only capable of 4s and 5s for the same movements from one judge. Was not amused to be on 68.9 and in 66th place out of 70.
Saturday afternoon was show-jumping, in their lovely big grass arena. After our disastrous round at Haras du Pin (7 down) I made a plea for help and ideas in my report, and LEC pointed me in the direction of Jo Cooper, an NLP and TFT practitioner. What was very handy about the way Jo works is that it can all be done on the phone, ideal when in different countries! We spoke a couple of times, one long session and the other shorter after a jumping lesson I had on the Tuesday prior to the event. I think the biggest thing Jo pin-pointed for me was the way I focus on fences as I come into them. If I can keep a lot of sky around the fence, rather than staring at a small point of the fence, it tends to go better. Along with my usual sj trainer's input over a short course we jumped on Tuesday I was feeling more positive. I think the NLP also helped me to identify some of the physical changes I make to the way I ride once it's a "course" and not just training. One of these is tending to use my hand a lot more strongly. As we can now successfully jump at home in a snaffle, and seeing as we weren't troubling the leaders after the dressage, I decided to be brave and put the snaffle in for our round. What it did make me do was "ride" a lot more, just to keep him under control. The good thing was he doesn't over-react to it which he can when I pull too hard on his usual pelham (funny that
), and whilst I still need to work on keeping my shoulders more back it was a much happier round for our equal best result ever at 3* - 2 down 
.
This pulled us up to the dizzy heights of 56th, so we didn't feel bad about heading on down to the party Saturday night
. Being a lightweight these days the luton looked a bit high up when we went to bed so I slept on the sofa 
. It poured most of the night, so what had been absolutely perfect ground was a bit softer, but it held up fairly well in most places. They were running it in reverse order so we were 12th to go. William was mighty cheerful in the warm-up, which was great as he's been a bit grumpy warming up at his last two events. He's a fab shot of him coming out the start box:
For once I managed to get decent shots at the first few fences, and we had a straightforward run to the first proper question, a nasty S bend into some wine-barrels, then a long two strides (11m) to a big enough corner. The ground had really deteriorated on the turns, and I had him deep to the barrels, so I just sat up on landing and he popped in three neat little strides no bother at all, then powered round the corner and opened up beautifully over another corner. His ability to open and close really is phenomenal, and he is so clever about it. The next fence was a coffin-like question, although the ditch had a log over it so was a trakehner really. Rode long to get out on one stride but he added some turbo on take-off and it wasn't a problem. Nice straightforward fence next, then down to a big oxer, 5 turning strides to a skinny box, just fab through there. Next big question was two logs perched on separate mounds, then on landing over the second log the straight route was 4 strides down the bank to a really nastily angled corner. To make matters worse the course builders had made a "guard rail" out of bushes and barrels that looked exactly like a fence at the bottom of the bank. It served its purpose of making the direct route very difficult, and the long route time-consuming, but I complained to the TD about it being unfair on the horses when we train them to lock on to what's in front of them. There was an instance of this in Haras du Pin and Luhmuhlen (June) too and I don't like this trend. There have got to be other ways of forcing us to take lines without tricking our horses. Anyway, William skipped through the direct route like the seasoned pro he is, and I was later told I was the first person to try the direct route. Over a table type fence - as far as I could tell an unfixed portable - and on to the first water. Big enough upright going in, up and out over a palisade:
Round a loop at the far end of the course consisting of a trakehner, and house, and a turning combination of angled rolltops, rode shorter than I thought but he sorted it all out, and some trains, then back into the water, palisade going in, 3 slightly curving strides to a skinny which had already caused a few stops when I set off, then 3 strides to a rail out. For some reason this fence caused lots of run-outs, but it was good course designing as the alternative took an off-putting amount of time.
On over another portable, then two fairly narrow slightly angled logs on about 17-18 metres. It walked 4, but I'd watched the 2* horses go through it and knew William didn't need setting up for it so went on 3 no problem. I think the fact that in the same course he managed 3 strides in both an 11m and 17m combination without either feeling a problem shows his forte! On over the last two and he came in to big pats and after 5 minutes his heart rate was down to 60bpm. I hadn't gone crazy as the ground wasn't that fast and we were rather near the bottom of the leader board, so we picked up 10 time faults. Soon after we packed up and went home, in fact we were back at home, lorry unpacked, horses tucked up, glass of wine in hand by 6pm, very civilised! Checked the results and it had caused carnage, so much so that we ended up 21st! Prizes down to 18th.... if I'd known that I'd have kicked on a bit more! Really pleased with him though, he has been remarkably consistent this year, he's done an L (OPN), the Benelux Championships (OI), Saumur CCI***, Luhmuhlen CCI****, the Belgian Championships (OI), Haras du Pin CICW***, and Breda CIC***. Barring a rider error 20pen at Saumur he's been clear and run fast at all of them, so thank you William!
ps. Also had some lovely news about Liberty (D Day) who I sold to Italy 2 and a half years ago and had lost track of - he has been picked for the Junior European Championships! VERY proud!
It was an absolute pleasure to drive to an event less than two hours away and use less than half a tank of diesel! We arrived to beautiful sunny weather on Thursday and trotted up in the afternoon. Breda always has plenty of other disciplines going on, and they were hosts to the 4 in-hand European Driving Championships this weekend. Like all good eventers William thought these were a great excuse, he took particular exception to any carriage pulled by greys, but boy did I get some FAB expression in his flatwork when schooling him Thursday afternoon! Here are some of the drivers during their marathon (these were the ponies who ran earlier, champs was for horses):
We had a fairly late dressage Friday, he warmed up not bad, lately our work has focussed on insisting on him staying soft and through, if necessary pushing his hindquarters out to overcome him blocking. His test was not bad, I was cross that I allowed him to shift me in the first counter canter so he changed, and we had very little space to regain counter canter then do our flying change, which meant that it was late behind. I do find it hard to understand how 2 weeks ago in a 4*-level test he was capable of 7s for all his lateral work and this week in a 3* level test he is only capable of 4s and 5s for the same movements from one judge. Was not amused to be on 68.9 and in 66th place out of 70.
Saturday afternoon was show-jumping, in their lovely big grass arena. After our disastrous round at Haras du Pin (7 down) I made a plea for help and ideas in my report, and LEC pointed me in the direction of Jo Cooper, an NLP and TFT practitioner. What was very handy about the way Jo works is that it can all be done on the phone, ideal when in different countries! We spoke a couple of times, one long session and the other shorter after a jumping lesson I had on the Tuesday prior to the event. I think the biggest thing Jo pin-pointed for me was the way I focus on fences as I come into them. If I can keep a lot of sky around the fence, rather than staring at a small point of the fence, it tends to go better. Along with my usual sj trainer's input over a short course we jumped on Tuesday I was feeling more positive. I think the NLP also helped me to identify some of the physical changes I make to the way I ride once it's a "course" and not just training. One of these is tending to use my hand a lot more strongly. As we can now successfully jump at home in a snaffle, and seeing as we weren't troubling the leaders after the dressage, I decided to be brave and put the snaffle in for our round. What it did make me do was "ride" a lot more, just to keep him under control. The good thing was he doesn't over-react to it which he can when I pull too hard on his usual pelham (funny that
), and whilst I still need to work on keeping my shoulders more back it was a much happier round for our equal best result ever at 3* - 2 down .
This pulled us up to the dizzy heights of 56th, so we didn't feel bad about heading on down to the party Saturday night
. Being a lightweight these days the luton looked a bit high up when we went to bed so I slept on the sofa . It poured most of the night, so what had been absolutely perfect ground was a bit softer, but it held up fairly well in most places. They were running it in reverse order so we were 12th to go. William was mighty cheerful in the warm-up, which was great as he's been a bit grumpy warming up at his last two events. He's a fab shot of him coming out the start box:
For once I managed to get decent shots at the first few fences, and we had a straightforward run to the first proper question, a nasty S bend into some wine-barrels, then a long two strides (11m) to a big enough corner. The ground had really deteriorated on the turns, and I had him deep to the barrels, so I just sat up on landing and he popped in three neat little strides no bother at all, then powered round the corner and opened up beautifully over another corner. His ability to open and close really is phenomenal, and he is so clever about it. The next fence was a coffin-like question, although the ditch had a log over it so was a trakehner really. Rode long to get out on one stride but he added some turbo on take-off and it wasn't a problem. Nice straightforward fence next, then down to a big oxer, 5 turning strides to a skinny box, just fab through there. Next big question was two logs perched on separate mounds, then on landing over the second log the straight route was 4 strides down the bank to a really nastily angled corner. To make matters worse the course builders had made a "guard rail" out of bushes and barrels that looked exactly like a fence at the bottom of the bank. It served its purpose of making the direct route very difficult, and the long route time-consuming, but I complained to the TD about it being unfair on the horses when we train them to lock on to what's in front of them. There was an instance of this in Haras du Pin and Luhmuhlen (June) too and I don't like this trend. There have got to be other ways of forcing us to take lines without tricking our horses. Anyway, William skipped through the direct route like the seasoned pro he is, and I was later told I was the first person to try the direct route
. Over a table type fence - as far as I could tell an unfixed portable - and on to the first water. Big enough upright going in, up and out over a palisade:
Round a loop at the far end of the course consisting of a trakehner, and house, and a turning combination of angled rolltops, rode shorter than I thought but he sorted it all out, and some trains, then back into the water, palisade going in, 3 slightly curving strides to a skinny which had already caused a few stops when I set off, then 3 strides to a rail out. For some reason this fence caused lots of run-outs, but it was good course designing as the alternative took an off-putting amount of time.
On over another portable, then two fairly narrow slightly angled logs on about 17-18 metres. It walked 4, but I'd watched the 2* horses go through it and knew William didn't need setting up for it so went on 3 no problem. I think the fact that in the same course he managed 3 strides in both an 11m and 17m combination without either feeling a problem shows his forte! On over the last two and he came in to big pats and after 5 minutes his heart rate was down to 60bpm. I hadn't gone crazy as the ground wasn't that fast and we were rather near the bottom of the leader board, so we picked up 10 time faults. Soon after we packed up and went home, in fact we were back at home, lorry unpacked, horses tucked up, glass of wine in hand by 6pm, very civilised! Checked the results and it had caused carnage, so much so that we ended up 21st! Prizes down to 18th.... if I'd known that I'd have kicked on a bit more! Really pleased with him though, he has been remarkably consistent this year, he's done an L (OPN), the Benelux Championships (OI), Saumur CCI***, Luhmuhlen CCI****, the Belgian Championships (OI), Haras du Pin CICW***, and Breda CIC***. Barring a rider error 20pen at Saumur he's been clear and run fast at all of them, so thank you William!
ps. Also had some lovely news about Liberty (D Day) who I sold to Italy 2 and a half years ago and had lost track of - he has been picked for the Junior European Championships! VERY proud!
. Very interesting what you say about Jo Cooper and pleased to hear it's working for you. I should think you and William both deserve a bit of a rest now before cracking on with your off-season training 
