Leo Walker
Well-Known Member
I so very nearly didnt make it. I had more emergency surgery on my eyes a couple of weeks ago so probably shouldnt have gone and then Bobbie kicked me in the head on Friday night and gave me the most enormous black eye, at which point even I wondered if I should bother going! My trailer wasnt ready so I had to borrow someone elses and do 5 round trips to drop of the carriage, pickup the carriage and take the pony there and back both days which wasnt fun. However I am nothing if not stubborn so off we went! We ended up being late. I couldnt set off any earlier as I share the car with my partner and he was at work until 7, so just one of those things. Not conductive to a calm start though!
Bobbie was angelic on Saturday. She stood at the trailer with no issues all day and was generally a pleasure to have around. Day one is dressage and cones. I have done precisely one lot of dressage schooling and one run through of the test and I was doing a higher level test as there were 79 entries as it was a national young driver thing and there wasnt time to change arena sizes, so I wasnt expecting miracles! We got to warm up on the polo field which made me want to gallop across it, but I refrained.
Dressage did not go well! Bobbie who drives out in heavy traffic decided that the judges cars were terrifying and spent most of the test bent like a banana and shuffling forward with her head in the air. To give her her due she went where I said and when but it didnt resemble any sort of proper dressage. Lots of schooling ahead for us now!
After dressage it was cones. For this you have to extend the axles on your carriage to make the back wheels wider. I checked that mine did this, all good. Except on the day one side jammed. In my wisdom I decided to just extend one side by 10cms so I was at least the required width and just try my best. You get about 15cms leeway from the width of your carriage to the gap between the cones so this was not really a good idea! Cones are very hard to do when your black eye is so bad you cant open your eye. I was expecting carnage. Bobbie had other ideas. She loves cones so off we went. She was amazing. Green as you would expect but bits of it were exceptionally good. She loved it, and wanted to go again, and had to be made to leave bouncing with excitement. Shes only ever done one full cones course before, so with a few more miles on the clock she is going to be incredibly reliable. I wasnt sure we would make the time but even going wide and taking our time we were the fastest. She absolutely blew me away. We won the cones section!
We came back the next day and she was absolutely awful! I'd left myself 3 hours to walk the course and watch other people to see how it was driving. My plan was to put her in an electric fenced pen which is standard practice. She was having none of that and after trying to jump out was tied up to the trailer where she promptly snapped the string 3 times and thought about sodding off. On reflection, I shouldnt have been on my own. She had a very exciting day on the Saturday and wanted to get on with the job not hang about. I had 2 people coming to help and both couldnt make it due to things happening at the last minute. With about an hour left and several panicked phone calls I got someone to come and baby sit her and went off to try and learn the course.
The first obstacle was 4 concentric circles of blue post and rails and I just couldnt make it out. My sight is ok but focusing is hard and this just was too much. I also had almost no time to learn it or let any of it sink in, so it was never going to end well! The rest looked fine and I headed back to harness up. By this point Bobbie was absolutely wild and tried to send my back step flying and run off and she got a smack. That seemed to snap her out of it and she was full of it but not dangerous.
We harnessed her up and I threw myself in the carriage and we passaged about 1/2 mile to the start. By this point I was convinced we were going to die and very nearly went home! I managed to keep her walking quietly in big sweeping circles until they counted us down and then we were off. It was like driving a small, hairy freight train. In the dressage she tried to say she couldnt do a big trot, she lied! We were absolutely flying. I managed to haul her back to a slow charge and my amazing backstep manged to get me round obstacle 1. It wasnt pretty, I missed a gate and had to haul her back and that rattled her, and looking back she was worried and needed me to be confident and calm, but I was in such a panic about not seeing the rails that I let her down.
She came out of the obstacle and tried to duck out of the flags, I flicked her with the whip and we were airbourne. I thought she was going to run away with me, but she came back. Obstacle 2 I went the wrong way through a gate. I wasnt listening to my back step and it was completely my fault, however it woke me up. Out on a marathon course with a young green pony is not the place to be doing my own thing. My amazing backstep got us back on track and it all fell into place. Its a team effort, the backstep, the driver and the pony all work together and until that point we had been all over the place. Once I got myself together it fell into place and felt amazing!
We got to go stampeding over the polo pitch, up massive bank, totally nailed obstacle 3, came down the massive bank which my pony handled like a complete pro and then back for another little stampede across the polo pitch. At this point I thought we were eliminated for taking the wrong course so we walked to give her a breather, picked her up for obstacle 4, flew round like we had been doing it for years and then walked to the finish.
Turns out we werent eliminated at all! But even given all the walking we didnt get that many time faults. I have always been worried Bobbie wouldnt make the time. Shes naturally lazy and very cobby with little legs. Turns out I was very wrong. If I had trotted her we would have made the time without having to push on at all.
I learnt so, so, so much! We need to practice dressage or we wont be able to do it! Bobbie has about 10 more gears that I had no idea even existed, so theres going to be lots of work on being able to produce those on demand from now onwards. There is so much more to come from her. I also need to practice listening and taking direction! Its not something that normally happens when I drive and it took me far to long to pay attention properly and I let her down a little bit in the beginning. I also need to make absolutely certain that I can walk the course properly and learn it. With huge solid obstacles you do not want to be winging it!
But really there is nothing more I could have asked from her. She did everything I asked. The pictures are a really good representation of how it felt. A really keen, happy pony trying her best even if she is slightly bemused by it all. When I went to see her today she was shouting at me from across the field and I genuinely think she thought we were going again today. No chance! I had to come home this afternoon and have a lay down!
After all that we finished second overall and over a 100 points ahead of third place, and we won the cones easily. I still cant quite believe it!
My health is so up and down I dont know if we will get to do another one, but if not it doesnt matter, we made it and we finished and we didnt disgrace ourselves. I'm already plotting the next one in September though. If I can keep my sight and keep her sound I think she has the makings of something really special
This cuts off the last and best bit, but my cones round
Bobbie was angelic on Saturday. She stood at the trailer with no issues all day and was generally a pleasure to have around. Day one is dressage and cones. I have done precisely one lot of dressage schooling and one run through of the test and I was doing a higher level test as there were 79 entries as it was a national young driver thing and there wasnt time to change arena sizes, so I wasnt expecting miracles! We got to warm up on the polo field which made me want to gallop across it, but I refrained.
Dressage did not go well! Bobbie who drives out in heavy traffic decided that the judges cars were terrifying and spent most of the test bent like a banana and shuffling forward with her head in the air. To give her her due she went where I said and when but it didnt resemble any sort of proper dressage. Lots of schooling ahead for us now!
After dressage it was cones. For this you have to extend the axles on your carriage to make the back wheels wider. I checked that mine did this, all good. Except on the day one side jammed. In my wisdom I decided to just extend one side by 10cms so I was at least the required width and just try my best. You get about 15cms leeway from the width of your carriage to the gap between the cones so this was not really a good idea! Cones are very hard to do when your black eye is so bad you cant open your eye. I was expecting carnage. Bobbie had other ideas. She loves cones so off we went. She was amazing. Green as you would expect but bits of it were exceptionally good. She loved it, and wanted to go again, and had to be made to leave bouncing with excitement. Shes only ever done one full cones course before, so with a few more miles on the clock she is going to be incredibly reliable. I wasnt sure we would make the time but even going wide and taking our time we were the fastest. She absolutely blew me away. We won the cones section!
We came back the next day and she was absolutely awful! I'd left myself 3 hours to walk the course and watch other people to see how it was driving. My plan was to put her in an electric fenced pen which is standard practice. She was having none of that and after trying to jump out was tied up to the trailer where she promptly snapped the string 3 times and thought about sodding off. On reflection, I shouldnt have been on my own. She had a very exciting day on the Saturday and wanted to get on with the job not hang about. I had 2 people coming to help and both couldnt make it due to things happening at the last minute. With about an hour left and several panicked phone calls I got someone to come and baby sit her and went off to try and learn the course.
The first obstacle was 4 concentric circles of blue post and rails and I just couldnt make it out. My sight is ok but focusing is hard and this just was too much. I also had almost no time to learn it or let any of it sink in, so it was never going to end well! The rest looked fine and I headed back to harness up. By this point Bobbie was absolutely wild and tried to send my back step flying and run off and she got a smack. That seemed to snap her out of it and she was full of it but not dangerous.
We harnessed her up and I threw myself in the carriage and we passaged about 1/2 mile to the start. By this point I was convinced we were going to die and very nearly went home! I managed to keep her walking quietly in big sweeping circles until they counted us down and then we were off. It was like driving a small, hairy freight train. In the dressage she tried to say she couldnt do a big trot, she lied! We were absolutely flying. I managed to haul her back to a slow charge and my amazing backstep manged to get me round obstacle 1. It wasnt pretty, I missed a gate and had to haul her back and that rattled her, and looking back she was worried and needed me to be confident and calm, but I was in such a panic about not seeing the rails that I let her down.
She came out of the obstacle and tried to duck out of the flags, I flicked her with the whip and we were airbourne. I thought she was going to run away with me, but she came back. Obstacle 2 I went the wrong way through a gate. I wasnt listening to my back step and it was completely my fault, however it woke me up. Out on a marathon course with a young green pony is not the place to be doing my own thing. My amazing backstep got us back on track and it all fell into place. Its a team effort, the backstep, the driver and the pony all work together and until that point we had been all over the place. Once I got myself together it fell into place and felt amazing!
We got to go stampeding over the polo pitch, up massive bank, totally nailed obstacle 3, came down the massive bank which my pony handled like a complete pro and then back for another little stampede across the polo pitch. At this point I thought we were eliminated for taking the wrong course so we walked to give her a breather, picked her up for obstacle 4, flew round like we had been doing it for years and then walked to the finish.
Turns out we werent eliminated at all! But even given all the walking we didnt get that many time faults. I have always been worried Bobbie wouldnt make the time. Shes naturally lazy and very cobby with little legs. Turns out I was very wrong. If I had trotted her we would have made the time without having to push on at all.
I learnt so, so, so much! We need to practice dressage or we wont be able to do it! Bobbie has about 10 more gears that I had no idea even existed, so theres going to be lots of work on being able to produce those on demand from now onwards. There is so much more to come from her. I also need to practice listening and taking direction! Its not something that normally happens when I drive and it took me far to long to pay attention properly and I let her down a little bit in the beginning. I also need to make absolutely certain that I can walk the course properly and learn it. With huge solid obstacles you do not want to be winging it!
But really there is nothing more I could have asked from her. She did everything I asked. The pictures are a really good representation of how it felt. A really keen, happy pony trying her best even if she is slightly bemused by it all. When I went to see her today she was shouting at me from across the field and I genuinely think she thought we were going again today. No chance! I had to come home this afternoon and have a lay down!
After all that we finished second overall and over a 100 points ahead of third place, and we won the cones easily. I still cant quite believe it!
My health is so up and down I dont know if we will get to do another one, but if not it doesnt matter, we made it and we finished and we didnt disgrace ourselves. I'm already plotting the next one in September though. If I can keep my sight and keep her sound I think she has the makings of something really special
This cuts off the last and best bit, but my cones round
