DollyPentreath
Well-Known Member
So, my trainer and I set off on the near 4 hour journey to Brightling on Saturday. We stabled 5 mins from the event in the most beautiful yard, the horses had a scenic view of the hills and a reservoir from their stable. We stayed in the lorry, with slightly less glamourous views.. We were woken at around 5am to the sound of very heavy rain which were persisted until around 7am, it was so heavy I thought Brightling might abandon! After getting them both ready we took about 5 attempts to get the lorry back through the gateway and were off.
We were towed into the event by a tractor, as I think nearly every lorry was and the ground was pretty gluey already. The sun came out (and stayed out all day!) and off we went to the dr. He warmed up really well and the ground didn't bother him at all, I thought our warm up was better than the ** warm up anyway. We did, for us, a seriously good test and both my trainer and myself were thrilled! We fell in on a couple of corners and the only moments of resistance were going away from the judge. Later on in the day my trainer was gobsmacked to find out I'd scored 39.5 and was just as disappointed as me. The highest dr score in my section to complete was 31.9 and when I got my sheet back my trainer was even more cross!
Our first few comments were ' 6 - too deep'.. TOO FRIGGIN' DEEP!!! Our tests usually consist of 'could be rounder' down most of the page. Our first extension, which was pretty fab, scored a 5 with 'needs more from behind' *sigh* There's only so much behind we can do, without injecting some warmblood DNA into the poor chap. What more do the judges want - blood!? (Please take the last comment as tongue in cheek - I don't hate dressage judges really..
) Still, we got an 8 for our halt and I got a 7 for my riding, plus we were about 2/3rds down the board so it wasn't the end of the world!
Onto the sj, after watching a few go round it was causing massive problems. The ground had gone like superglue and my trainer was considering withdrawing from the Int. Careful, scopey horses were going upwards, rather than outwards to compensate and not makintg the distance on spreads. I saw 3 broken back rails, several falls and lots of CR's. The arena was on a slope and in the warm up cantering uphill just felt like you weren't getting anywhere. However, the going worked to our advantage, as Ferd is a leg in each corner sort and wasn't too bothered. Trainer suggested to really attack and ride boldly as horses were stopping all over the place because they just didn't have enough oomph in the canter. I was really, really chuffed to just have 1 down, second part of the double, which he just tapped. We had a slight disagreement at fence 5 as we were on different strides but he cleared it for me all the same.
XC was hilly! We don't have hills in the New Forest so I was shattered after walking round..
I thought it was a bold course with a couple of tricky questions. I won't go through each fence (relief!) as the majority were fine. The first water I rode really boldly as we nearly had a fall XC schooling at hoplands down a log drop into water a few weeks earlier, so a big palisade, three strides down a log drop and we were all good. The second water had an arrowhead actually in the water next to the ** fence, which, helpfully had a pump installed to look like a waterfall, so a few had spooked but Ferd was fine. We trotted over the arrowhead and jumped it really neatly. Through the woods to a downhill hanging long, 3 strides to a ditch, then 2 strides uphill, 90 degree turn left over an arrowhead - really nasty this.. There was an alternative, 90 degrees to the right, which gave you three strides but headed you in the direction you didn'y want to go. I mean't to try the direct route, but he leapt the ditch so I made a straight line to jump the arrowhead on an angle, he's such a star and loves his job. I don't think I would've got away with it on another horse. He rapped the last 2 solid fences, and I stopped asking for more bacause he was pretty tired. He could've gone round Tweseldown again last week but the Brightling hills had taken their toll.. We finished clear with 8.4 time faults to finish 8th out of 39 starters!!
So, we've also acheived our first point, yay! So chuffed with him as he was super in each phase, I took great pride in getting all dressed up for the prize giving, even if it was for an 8th rossie, I was like the cat that got the cream!
My trainer had an ok dr, 2 down sj and a fab xc so she was pleased too. So we're off to Wilton the week after next for another novice run before Aston int.. After the rotten luck other HHO'ers seem to be having this week, I send out my best wishes to you all! Thanks for reading, and no piccies I'm afraid as there was no one to hold a camera!
We were towed into the event by a tractor, as I think nearly every lorry was and the ground was pretty gluey already. The sun came out (and stayed out all day!) and off we went to the dr. He warmed up really well and the ground didn't bother him at all, I thought our warm up was better than the ** warm up anyway. We did, for us, a seriously good test and both my trainer and myself were thrilled! We fell in on a couple of corners and the only moments of resistance were going away from the judge. Later on in the day my trainer was gobsmacked to find out I'd scored 39.5 and was just as disappointed as me. The highest dr score in my section to complete was 31.9 and when I got my sheet back my trainer was even more cross!
Onto the sj, after watching a few go round it was causing massive problems. The ground had gone like superglue and my trainer was considering withdrawing from the Int. Careful, scopey horses were going upwards, rather than outwards to compensate and not makintg the distance on spreads. I saw 3 broken back rails, several falls and lots of CR's. The arena was on a slope and in the warm up cantering uphill just felt like you weren't getting anywhere. However, the going worked to our advantage, as Ferd is a leg in each corner sort and wasn't too bothered. Trainer suggested to really attack and ride boldly as horses were stopping all over the place because they just didn't have enough oomph in the canter. I was really, really chuffed to just have 1 down, second part of the double, which he just tapped. We had a slight disagreement at fence 5 as we were on different strides but he cleared it for me all the same.
XC was hilly! We don't have hills in the New Forest so I was shattered after walking round..
My trainer had an ok dr, 2 down sj and a fab xc so she was pleased too. So we're off to Wilton the week after next for another novice run before Aston int.. After the rotten luck other HHO'ers seem to be having this week, I send out my best wishes to you all! Thanks for reading, and no piccies I'm afraid as there was no one to hold a camera!
