FigJam
Well-Known Member
Evening all!
A wee report from Hopalong and I- no action shots from today I'm afraid as Mr FigJam busy doing his own hobby, but some camera phone shots of H (and the weather!) from me to brighten up my blurb!
Ever feel like a day's maybe not meant to be?! Arrived at the yard to have a livery's husband point out a very flat front tyre on Hank.
Pumped it up as Mr FigJam said it had done it before, slow puncture, and it held for the two hours that I was faffing at the yard getting ready, so decided would travel but had spare wheel and AA card at the ready!
Hopalong came back in from the field looking like this;
Grrr, lots of elbow grease and some plaiting later and we were much more presentable though and she had realised summat was up.
We then had a mini blizzard while I was plaiting... more "should we/shouldn't we" puzzling but it stopped, the sun came out and there was none lying, so we set off hoping it was fine at the other end. (and hour away)
However... this is what we turned up to
The dressage was being done outdoors in the arena that is in the picture and my poor RC pal's daughter was dressaging in it!! Picked up number and prayed for weather to cheer up! Luckily it did and about 10mins later, it looked like this;
The sun stayed out, the snow stayed off and had melted away pretty quickly so we have no real excuses for the 59.6% DR score that was earned. It could definitely have been softer and rounder, but it was accurate and a good rythym and didn't feel sub 60%. So normal dressage business has resumed and we were tailing up the section of 12 or so in 2nd bottom place.
But we were really there for the fun bit anyway! Jumping was 75-80cm and done as a 2 phase- 10 fences first round then straight to jump off of another 5 fences. Hopalong was very up for this and watched the first few very intently (you could actually see her head move to follow them round the course!) so we learned the course together!
She flew round and had an absolute blast- as did I!
Fences 6-10 were basically lined up round the outside of the arena so very easy for her to hoon round at great speed, then the jump off was 6-8 again plus U-turn back to fences 1 & 2, so basically a lap and a half of the arena at warp speed. SJ judge's comment when announcing our time was "more like steeplechasing"!
So we ended up fastest DC and nice red frilly for the SJ section. Jumping pulled us up to 6th overall in the CT so Hopalong had two frillies to model back at the trailer;
Next up is arena event (80cm) next Sunday, can't wait.
PS- a few action shots that I got the other week from our first outing at the start of Feb, thanks to a RC friend who took them and gave me permission for using them online. (http://www.sfetechnicalsolutions.co.uk/)
Happy horse or what?!
These fences are too small says Hopalong!
A wee report from Hopalong and I- no action shots from today I'm afraid as Mr FigJam busy doing his own hobby, but some camera phone shots of H (and the weather!) from me to brighten up my blurb!
Ever feel like a day's maybe not meant to be?! Arrived at the yard to have a livery's husband point out a very flat front tyre on Hank.
Pumped it up as Mr FigJam said it had done it before, slow puncture, and it held for the two hours that I was faffing at the yard getting ready, so decided would travel but had spare wheel and AA card at the ready! Hopalong came back in from the field looking like this;
Grrr, lots of elbow grease and some plaiting later and we were much more presentable though and she had realised summat was up.
We then had a mini blizzard while I was plaiting... more "should we/shouldn't we" puzzling but it stopped, the sun came out and there was none lying, so we set off hoping it was fine at the other end. (and hour away)
However... this is what we turned up to
The dressage was being done outdoors in the arena that is in the picture and my poor RC pal's daughter was dressaging in it!! Picked up number and prayed for weather to cheer up! Luckily it did and about 10mins later, it looked like this;
The sun stayed out, the snow stayed off and had melted away pretty quickly so we have no real excuses for the 59.6% DR score that was earned.
It could definitely have been softer and rounder, but it was accurate and a good rythym and didn't feel sub 60%. So normal dressage business has resumed and we were tailing up the section of 12 or so in 2nd bottom place. But we were really there for the fun bit anyway!
Jumping was 75-80cm and done as a 2 phase- 10 fences first round then straight to jump off of another 5 fences. Hopalong was very up for this and watched the first few very intently (you could actually see her head move to follow them round the course!) so we learned the course together! She flew round and had an absolute blast- as did I!
Fences 6-10 were basically lined up round the outside of the arena so very easy for her to hoon round at great speed, then the jump off was 6-8 again plus U-turn back to fences 1 & 2, so basically a lap and a half of the arena at warp speed. SJ judge's comment when announcing our time was "more like steeplechasing"! So we ended up fastest DC and nice red frilly for the SJ section.
Jumping pulled us up to 6th overall in the CT so Hopalong had two frillies to model back at the trailer;
Next up is arena event (80cm) next Sunday, can't wait.
PS- a few action shots that I got the other week from our first outing at the start of Feb, thanks to a RC friend who took them and gave me permission for using them online. (http://www.sfetechnicalsolutions.co.uk/)
Happy horse or what?!
These fences are too small says Hopalong!
She then grumps at me scraping it all off, a true bog pony at heart?! 
