Karran
Well-Known Member
It took me three weeks to be able to walk normally after falling off in my practice prior to my previous competition when she put in a massive and unexpected pop.
In the meantime I went away for two weeks, came back, did one lesson on parallels, had a go on my own and then on Tuesday decided we might as well go crazy and enter myself in for todays Competition.
I had a drama getting hold of the test sheet (Intro A) got a copy off of here on Thursday and didn't really get much of a chance to practise it before hand on her.
So a sleepless night last night fretting about Green Parallels of Terror and whether I had actually learnt my test!
Set off bright and early and hacked down relatively incident free apart from a duck quacking which set off a little stroppy bouncy rear and jogging on the spot before I managed to kick her on.
She was pretty wired throughout our warm-up, we were sharing the space with those warming up for the jumping and the horses hacking down the lanes proved a huge distraction. My comments last time were to have more impulsion and get into the corners more.
So we tried to get lots of transitions in and get her listening to me and off of the leg.
Went in and went pretty sweetly despite us both being a bit tense and on edge, unfortunately I completely cocked up and thought I was in the wrong spot for my change across the diagonal (Got to F, panicked and thought I should have been doing it at K), I tried to cover it up by leg-yielding out to the centre and then coming back across to M. Of course I got beeped and reminded it was FXH.
Idiot!
Redid the movement and completed the test sheepishly with no further errors.
I scored 61% with a 2 mark deduction for my error, my comments this time were "willing little mare but needs more power" I assume that's the same as having more impulsion? some of my individual comments were that it was a bit disjointed and I agree with that, I was so focussed with making sure I got into the corners sometimes I forgot the rest of it needed to be accurate as well!
I got 62% on the last test so at least I'm being consistent with my scoring which is great and I just need to sort my head out to move us on to the next stage.
Warmed up and headed out for jumping. I was relieved to see that the Green Parallel of Terror had been taken from 3rd fence to last fence and I figured adrenaline would mean we'd get through it fine!
The only other fence I felt a bit nervous about was a kinda 3-bar parallel in a fan shape? But I convinced myself it'd be fine and I'd just aim for the narrowest bit and off we shot!
V clearly thought this was the best part of the day and was very much in a "point me at it and i'll go" type mood, I tried to remember all I'd been told (shouted at) that it's not actually faster just bouncier as she gathers herself ready to jump and just went with it.
Flew over the first two, and then three was a long double, I felt we were going just too fast at that stage and tried to half halt her in between them, either I was more forceful than intended or she misunderstood but she skidded to a halt.
Regrouped, trotted round to regain composure (and to figure out where I can start again from) and went over fine the second attempt. Fan shaped jump not a problem and we headed to the last.
I don't know what happened, I wasn't even thinking about it at that point (more busy trying to remember to breathe and steer) but she put in a dirty stop and I went straight over the shoulder.
So another bad performance on paper but the positives were that I more or less got same score in the dressage despite my stupid mistake and this time we got all the way to the end relatively incident free jumping, and even when I did cause an error I didn't panic and fixed it.
More experience needed and a super hyped horse and exhausted me hacked home. (Big boo to the man harrowing his arena who refused to turn his quad bike off despite it causing a melt down as she then threw a tantrum and did more bouncy mini-rears on the spot.) Horsey people should know better, I just needed a few minutes to get her past it.
I really need to sort out my nerves. I'm more than capable of doing prelim if not some of the easier novices (very badly) and I am almost at the stage of thinking 70cm is easy when schooling at home, but yet the thought of a competition turns me into a wreck who thinks 40cm is "a bit high"
Hopefully more experience will give me the confidence. V's owner is talking about going to Eaglesfield in the future so if you see a slightly green-faced, white knuckled girl on a bay TBx I apologise in advance for our terribleness.
Sorry its a bit of a essay without photos but you can all share in my pimms tonight!
In the meantime I went away for two weeks, came back, did one lesson on parallels, had a go on my own and then on Tuesday decided we might as well go crazy and enter myself in for todays Competition.
I had a drama getting hold of the test sheet (Intro A) got a copy off of here on Thursday and didn't really get much of a chance to practise it before hand on her.
So a sleepless night last night fretting about Green Parallels of Terror and whether I had actually learnt my test!
Set off bright and early and hacked down relatively incident free apart from a duck quacking which set off a little stroppy bouncy rear and jogging on the spot before I managed to kick her on.
She was pretty wired throughout our warm-up, we were sharing the space with those warming up for the jumping and the horses hacking down the lanes proved a huge distraction. My comments last time were to have more impulsion and get into the corners more.
So we tried to get lots of transitions in and get her listening to me and off of the leg.
Went in and went pretty sweetly despite us both being a bit tense and on edge, unfortunately I completely cocked up and thought I was in the wrong spot for my change across the diagonal (Got to F, panicked and thought I should have been doing it at K), I tried to cover it up by leg-yielding out to the centre and then coming back across to M. Of course I got beeped and reminded it was FXH.
Idiot!
Redid the movement and completed the test sheepishly with no further errors.
I scored 61% with a 2 mark deduction for my error, my comments this time were "willing little mare but needs more power" I assume that's the same as having more impulsion? some of my individual comments were that it was a bit disjointed and I agree with that, I was so focussed with making sure I got into the corners sometimes I forgot the rest of it needed to be accurate as well!
I got 62% on the last test so at least I'm being consistent with my scoring which is great and I just need to sort my head out to move us on to the next stage.
Warmed up and headed out for jumping. I was relieved to see that the Green Parallel of Terror had been taken from 3rd fence to last fence and I figured adrenaline would mean we'd get through it fine!
The only other fence I felt a bit nervous about was a kinda 3-bar parallel in a fan shape? But I convinced myself it'd be fine and I'd just aim for the narrowest bit and off we shot!
V clearly thought this was the best part of the day and was very much in a "point me at it and i'll go" type mood, I tried to remember all I'd been told (shouted at) that it's not actually faster just bouncier as she gathers herself ready to jump and just went with it.
Flew over the first two, and then three was a long double, I felt we were going just too fast at that stage and tried to half halt her in between them, either I was more forceful than intended or she misunderstood but she skidded to a halt.
Regrouped, trotted round to regain composure (and to figure out where I can start again from) and went over fine the second attempt. Fan shaped jump not a problem and we headed to the last.
I don't know what happened, I wasn't even thinking about it at that point (more busy trying to remember to breathe and steer) but she put in a dirty stop and I went straight over the shoulder.
So another bad performance on paper but the positives were that I more or less got same score in the dressage despite my stupid mistake and this time we got all the way to the end relatively incident free jumping, and even when I did cause an error I didn't panic and fixed it.
More experience needed and a super hyped horse and exhausted me hacked home. (Big boo to the man harrowing his arena who refused to turn his quad bike off despite it causing a melt down as she then threw a tantrum and did more bouncy mini-rears on the spot.) Horsey people should know better, I just needed a few minutes to get her past it.
I really need to sort out my nerves. I'm more than capable of doing prelim if not some of the easier novices (very badly) and I am almost at the stage of thinking 70cm is easy when schooling at home, but yet the thought of a competition turns me into a wreck who thinks 40cm is "a bit high"
Hopefully more experience will give me the confidence. V's owner is talking about going to Eaglesfield in the future so if you see a slightly green-faced, white knuckled girl on a bay TBx I apologise in advance for our terribleness.
Sorry its a bit of a essay without photos but you can all share in my pimms tonight!