Morgan123
Well-Known Member
Hello! I don't normally do reports but - as it was a first ODE and I would like to tell the world how great this pony is, here goes!
I’ve always wanted to do an ODE but as my endurance horse is not very keen on jumping it’s been fairly out of the question! In fact, he also put me off jumping – this time last year 70cm looked pretty big and imposing. Anyway, I’ve had a bit of year of frustrating lameness problems with my lovely endurance horse, so in September last year I took on a Connie pony for a friend – I’ve known him for years but they’d been putting him on loan, and he kept being returned in disgrace for bucking people off! So he could either come to me for a while to see if he could be civilised, or retire (though he’s 16, he’s owned by a family with their own land so can retire whenever he fancies). Anyway the idea was just to have him for a bit and see how he was, but you know how it is….it’s a long story but somehow he’s still here…. ;-)!
So - Polo – he’s fantastic and full of fun, and he’s got me jumping again
. I’m loving it, so we entered LandS ODE (near Warwick) last weekend; my first ever ODE, and maybe his first one too. We’ve been jumping 90cm at home but I elected to do the 70cm so as not to stretch ourselves TOO much! I was pretty nervous about it – I’d never been to LandS before, but it’s a BE venue so I knew the jumps would be interesting and the classes big. LandS did a brilliant job of posting teaser pics of the jumps online in the lead-up to the event to get you excited, and I could barely sleep the few days before the event!
Well, we arrived and the venue was massive and exciting, with horses everywhere. Polo was pretty wired (probably because I was!) and as we warmed up for the dressage I thought, oh here we go – he did lots of head-snatching and big leaps instead of canter transitions due to excitement, and very clearly told me what he thought of me making him do flatwork when he could clearly see that there were jumps available. I tried my best (fairly unsuccessfully) to keep us both calm and breeeathe, and before we knew it, it was time for our test. I’ve only recently started riding dressage tests again after years of thinking I hate them, but I have developed a formula for success which works great for Polo: sing Lion King songs under your breath. I started with Hakuna Matata, which got us down the centre line, and with a bit of headshaking to start with, Polo began to settle. We moved onto ‘Gunna be a mighty king’ and he did some really quite nice work. I didn’t think it was amazing, but thought we should be ok for 60%ish which was my aim (our record – of two practices - being 63%).
Polo got lots of polos, and was untacked while I walked the XC course. XC is his favourite and I’d just been excited before, but as I walked the course I got more and more anxious. It wasn’t hard as such, but there were lots of questions – e.g. a simple log with some weird eye-catching planks underneath (like a ditch), a spooky pipe double, and then as you came home some really big ‘they can’t be 70cm!’ type chunky wide solids. The jumps are gorgeous I must say, and very inventive, massive well done to the designer!
Anyway, I walked the SJ, then popped by the secretary’s to look at our scores and was over the moon – 32!!! Amazing for Polo (and we later got some really nice comments from the judges). There were quite a few scores in the 30s, but I could see that this actually meant we could do OK today if the jumping went well – pressure pressure. So, we tacked up for the SJ….
Polo was extremely relieved to see some jumps and told me to stop bloody interfering, by ignoring any attempts I tried to make at braking, and demolishing a few of the warm ups. We had a little discussion about this and then went into the arena – the course was nice and flowing and un-intimidating, and Polo was a little concerned about me forgetting it so elected to do the whole thing as fast as possible which we both found quite amusing. We had one pole down, but we were happy enough with this.
SO – XC!!! OH God… We re-tacked up in our nice colour scheme, and went to the warm up, and I immediately thought, these warm up jumps are too big and too spooky (they were about 70cm), I’ll just do the tiny easy one. Then I thought, oh my god, I’ve got a whole course like that! I need to do it. Come one man up. Polo thought, thank the lord no dressage. Fortunately he thought they weren’t big or spooky and he also told me to man up, and then we were called to wait by the start box!
OMG I love the start box, I love how excited the horse gets, how you’re both nervous and excited and it’s all ahead of you, I love being counted down and the announcement and the apprehension…. AND then we were off! We set off in canter, and the course started through the woods. I quickly remembered (not having done XC on polo in many months) that he is quite anxious on an XC course, and thought, oh dear god. However, fortunately he was anxious about everything except the jumps, so we were the perfect combination actually, as I was ONLY nervous about the jumps. So we proceeded over the first few jumps with him saying ‘are you sure we should be going in this wood alone? It’s so scary. Oh good a jump, that’s easy’, and with me saying ‘isn’t this a nice wood to be cantering through alone, it’s lovely! Oh dear god a jump, it’s so scary’. Somehow, this combination actually worked quite well – teamwork and all that.
Unfortunately we had a GPS error on leaving the wood and emerged in the wrong place, and had to circle back to get to one of the jumps, but I was feeling OK about our progress – over the scary pipe double, through the water, over the house, up the steep hill (Polo loves steep hills, he liked to launch up them like a deer). AND then we turned for home, and everything started to flow….
This is where all the scary jumps were (from my point of view – the big ones) so my aim was to sit tight, kick, and shut my eyes. Polo took the initiative and flew and flew, and before I knew it we were heading for the last brush jump, and he was launching……
<a href="http://s1372.photobucket.com/user/tamzinfurtado/media/polopolo_zpswaox8jzm.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1372.photobucket.com/albums/ag353/tamzinfurtado/polopolo_zpswaox8jzm.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo polopolo_zpswaox8jzm.jpg"/></a>
CLEAR in the XC! Love this pony – on to the finish line, massive hugs, beams all round, many many polos consumed by all parties.
We untacked/washed down, and I digested all the little details so as not to forget, hugged Polo many times, and fed him many carrots. I didn’t even care how we did, I was so glad to be home and safe and happy and have had such an amazing time. And to have such an amazing pony! Actually we ended up 11th in our section – mainly due to the time faults from my GPS error. I’m absolutely over the moon with that, what a little dude he is. So, onwards and upwards, and cheers to Polo, what a pony.
I’ve always wanted to do an ODE but as my endurance horse is not very keen on jumping it’s been fairly out of the question! In fact, he also put me off jumping – this time last year 70cm looked pretty big and imposing. Anyway, I’ve had a bit of year of frustrating lameness problems with my lovely endurance horse, so in September last year I took on a Connie pony for a friend – I’ve known him for years but they’d been putting him on loan, and he kept being returned in disgrace for bucking people off! So he could either come to me for a while to see if he could be civilised, or retire (though he’s 16, he’s owned by a family with their own land so can retire whenever he fancies). Anyway the idea was just to have him for a bit and see how he was, but you know how it is….it’s a long story but somehow he’s still here…. ;-)!
So - Polo – he’s fantastic and full of fun, and he’s got me jumping again
. I’m loving it, so we entered LandS ODE (near Warwick) last weekend; my first ever ODE, and maybe his first one too. We’ve been jumping 90cm at home but I elected to do the 70cm so as not to stretch ourselves TOO much! I was pretty nervous about it – I’d never been to LandS before, but it’s a BE venue so I knew the jumps would be interesting and the classes big. LandS did a brilliant job of posting teaser pics of the jumps online in the lead-up to the event to get you excited, and I could barely sleep the few days before the event!Well, we arrived and the venue was massive and exciting, with horses everywhere. Polo was pretty wired (probably because I was!) and as we warmed up for the dressage I thought, oh here we go – he did lots of head-snatching and big leaps instead of canter transitions due to excitement, and very clearly told me what he thought of me making him do flatwork when he could clearly see that there were jumps available. I tried my best (fairly unsuccessfully) to keep us both calm and breeeathe, and before we knew it, it was time for our test. I’ve only recently started riding dressage tests again after years of thinking I hate them, but I have developed a formula for success which works great for Polo: sing Lion King songs under your breath. I started with Hakuna Matata, which got us down the centre line, and with a bit of headshaking to start with, Polo began to settle. We moved onto ‘Gunna be a mighty king’ and he did some really quite nice work. I didn’t think it was amazing, but thought we should be ok for 60%ish which was my aim (our record – of two practices - being 63%).
Polo got lots of polos, and was untacked while I walked the XC course. XC is his favourite and I’d just been excited before, but as I walked the course I got more and more anxious. It wasn’t hard as such, but there were lots of questions – e.g. a simple log with some weird eye-catching planks underneath (like a ditch), a spooky pipe double, and then as you came home some really big ‘they can’t be 70cm!’ type chunky wide solids. The jumps are gorgeous I must say, and very inventive, massive well done to the designer!
Anyway, I walked the SJ, then popped by the secretary’s to look at our scores and was over the moon – 32!!! Amazing for Polo (and we later got some really nice comments from the judges). There were quite a few scores in the 30s, but I could see that this actually meant we could do OK today if the jumping went well – pressure pressure. So, we tacked up for the SJ….
Polo was extremely relieved to see some jumps and told me to stop bloody interfering, by ignoring any attempts I tried to make at braking, and demolishing a few of the warm ups. We had a little discussion about this and then went into the arena – the course was nice and flowing and un-intimidating, and Polo was a little concerned about me forgetting it so elected to do the whole thing as fast as possible which we both found quite amusing. We had one pole down, but we were happy enough with this.
SO – XC!!! OH God… We re-tacked up in our nice colour scheme, and went to the warm up, and I immediately thought, these warm up jumps are too big and too spooky (they were about 70cm), I’ll just do the tiny easy one. Then I thought, oh my god, I’ve got a whole course like that! I need to do it. Come one man up. Polo thought, thank the lord no dressage. Fortunately he thought they weren’t big or spooky and he also told me to man up, and then we were called to wait by the start box!
OMG I love the start box, I love how excited the horse gets, how you’re both nervous and excited and it’s all ahead of you, I love being counted down and the announcement and the apprehension…. AND then we were off! We set off in canter, and the course started through the woods. I quickly remembered (not having done XC on polo in many months) that he is quite anxious on an XC course, and thought, oh dear god. However, fortunately he was anxious about everything except the jumps, so we were the perfect combination actually, as I was ONLY nervous about the jumps. So we proceeded over the first few jumps with him saying ‘are you sure we should be going in this wood alone? It’s so scary. Oh good a jump, that’s easy’, and with me saying ‘isn’t this a nice wood to be cantering through alone, it’s lovely! Oh dear god a jump, it’s so scary’. Somehow, this combination actually worked quite well – teamwork and all that.
Unfortunately we had a GPS error on leaving the wood and emerged in the wrong place, and had to circle back to get to one of the jumps, but I was feeling OK about our progress – over the scary pipe double, through the water, over the house, up the steep hill (Polo loves steep hills, he liked to launch up them like a deer). AND then we turned for home, and everything started to flow….
This is where all the scary jumps were (from my point of view – the big ones) so my aim was to sit tight, kick, and shut my eyes. Polo took the initiative and flew and flew, and before I knew it we were heading for the last brush jump, and he was launching……
<a href="http://s1372.photobucket.com/user/tamzinfurtado/media/polopolo_zpswaox8jzm.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1372.photobucket.com/albums/ag353/tamzinfurtado/polopolo_zpswaox8jzm.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo polopolo_zpswaox8jzm.jpg"/></a>
CLEAR in the XC! Love this pony – on to the finish line, massive hugs, beams all round, many many polos consumed by all parties.
We untacked/washed down, and I digested all the little details so as not to forget, hugged Polo many times, and fed him many carrots. I didn’t even care how we did, I was so glad to be home and safe and happy and have had such an amazing time. And to have such an amazing pony! Actually we ended up 11th in our section – mainly due to the time faults from my GPS error. I’m absolutely over the moon with that, what a little dude he is. So, onwards and upwards, and cheers to Polo, what a pony.
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