ann-jen
Well-Known Member
After feeling so nervous and umming and ahhing forever about whether to go or not we ended up having a fab day.
Despite the fact the clear round was scheduled for 9.30 and the British Novice to start at 10, when I arrived the course hadn't even been set out (at about 9am!)
Cue lots of standing around with nerves heightening!
The course was finally ready for walking at 10.30. Fences 1-6 for the clear round. It all seemed ok enough. I warmed Jenny up and she was in a particularly chilled out frame of mind (possibly anticipating more dressage after our pig of a day at Union Hall yesterday - don't ask!) We went in for the clear round which was probably at about 85cm maybe and she just pinged round no bother at all. I presented her on a very wiggly line into the double and had to fiddle in the middle to get her straight to jump out but this didn't bother her in the slightest. She didn't even mess about in between the fences and wasn't strong at all. So I thought I'd better bite the bullet and enter the British Novice.
She was an absolute star. I rode like a numpty into fence 2 and saw an impossibly long stride - fortunately it would appear Jenny is the brains of the outfit and completely ignored me and chipped an extra stride in or we'd of been in trouble. We had a very tight turn after fence 6 into fence 7 which meant I only got her straight about a stride in front of the fence which didn't phase her one bit and she pinged round the entire course to go clear.
I was 3rd from last to go in the jump off and had decided I wasn't going to pressurise myself into doing any tight turns etc but because Jenny was in a chilled frame of mind I did manage to turn inside to one of the fences but despite going reasonably quickly we unfortunately tipped the front rail on one of the oxers to end on 4fts.
I am still over the moon though - partly with myself as I was SOOO nervous but managed to get on and do it - the jump off height is the biggest I've jumped in nearly a year and looked immense - but mostly with Jenny who jumped exactly as she had before she was injured and was an out and out star and really helped me out with some of my dodgy judgements on take off spots!
I do love my little mare.
Despite the fact the clear round was scheduled for 9.30 and the British Novice to start at 10, when I arrived the course hadn't even been set out (at about 9am!)
The course was finally ready for walking at 10.30. Fences 1-6 for the clear round. It all seemed ok enough. I warmed Jenny up and she was in a particularly chilled out frame of mind (possibly anticipating more dressage after our pig of a day at Union Hall yesterday - don't ask!) We went in for the clear round which was probably at about 85cm maybe and she just pinged round no bother at all. I presented her on a very wiggly line into the double and had to fiddle in the middle to get her straight to jump out but this didn't bother her in the slightest. She didn't even mess about in between the fences and wasn't strong at all. So I thought I'd better bite the bullet and enter the British Novice.
She was an absolute star. I rode like a numpty into fence 2 and saw an impossibly long stride - fortunately it would appear Jenny is the brains of the outfit and completely ignored me and chipped an extra stride in or we'd of been in trouble. We had a very tight turn after fence 6 into fence 7 which meant I only got her straight about a stride in front of the fence which didn't phase her one bit and she pinged round the entire course to go clear.
I was 3rd from last to go in the jump off and had decided I wasn't going to pressurise myself into doing any tight turns etc but because Jenny was in a chilled frame of mind I did manage to turn inside to one of the fences but despite going reasonably quickly we unfortunately tipped the front rail on one of the oxers to end on 4fts.
I am still over the moon though - partly with myself as I was SOOO nervous but managed to get on and do it - the jump off height is the biggest I've jumped in nearly a year and looked immense - but mostly with Jenny who jumped exactly as she had before she was injured and was an out and out star and really helped me out with some of my dodgy judgements on take off spots!
