RachelFerd
Well-Known Member
Thought it might be nice to have a rolling thread for 2024 eventing chat - news, event reports, season planning etc.
I know we've all been feeding into thousands of posts on the more negative thread - but thought it might be nice to have somewhere to share some event reports and things (like the good old days of HHO). Not just from those competing, but maybe also from people volunteering and spectating too?
Anyway - to kick things of - a couple of bits of news and some quick reports from my first two events of the season;
Tweseldown - announced yesterday that they're putting on an event THIS WEEKEND to replace Cirencester - and they've had an incredible 387 entries overnight
I think they're still looking for volunteers to support the event - and anyone going to volunteer/spectate looks like they'll have a fantastic range of 5* horses to watch...
Chillington announced this morning that they're adding a novice class to the event on 1-2 June, which is good news for people in the NW and midlands as there aren't many others in the area around that time.
And then my first two events of the season...
Oasby - I ran on Friday 8th in the Open Novice. We did not have to be towed on or off, but the ground was clearly on the edge of becoming deep bog with any additional rain. Dressage warm-up I'd politely call 'tacky' - and being quite late on in the afternoon my arena featured deep sticky corners and a mud-hole at X. Did what I thought was a reasonable test given the conditions, but was a bit disappointed with a 37.something - however, even an established 5* horse with mid 20-s scores at 5* only scored a 31 - so I don't think the judge was giving marks away.
SJ warm-up was considerably worse - one of those occasions when you want to do the absolute bare minimum of jumping before going in. I had a stop in the warm-up where I just didn't ride well enough considering the conditions. Gave myself a talking to and rode much better in the ring for a decent clear round. To be fair to the organisers, huge effort had gone into keeping the going in the ring as good as possible, and whilst soft, it was being kept very level.
XC walked like a nice straightforward course (course pics here), but again, ground was holding. We were having a great spin around until the penultimate fence, which is just a little angled pheasant feeder with a short approach out of a thicket of bushes. I've jumped it several times before on this horse, and so complacency was my enemy and I totally missed my line, ended up jumping the wrong side of the flag over the intermediate fence by accident (which counted as a run-out), circled round, popped it and completed whilst mentally absolutely kicking myself for the ridiculous error. Drove home the 3 hours very, very, very cross with myself. Not the horse - horse had no idea he'd really done anything wrong as far as he was concerned.
Totally unsurprised they had to cancel the final day when it started raining - it was clearly on the edge of being able to run
Lincolnshire - I ran on Saturday in the Intermediate Novice. Long drive but an easier one than Oasby because you just get on the motorway and keep driving east from us! Horse was absolutely thrilled getting off the lorry to see that they had tasty unspoilt showground grass to snack on. You've never seen a horse come down a ramp so fast.
Dressage was actually decent ground to warm up on, and not bad in the arena. Test started out well enough, and felt like we were managing to maintain that better more uphill outline needed for intermediate, until I failed to keep my leg on going into the counter canter - broke, popped back up into non-counter canter, and then that meant we also missed doing a proper simple change immediately afterwards. I did some calculations and reckon that I lost about 2.5% with that one error, because it destroyed the mark for two movements. Eep! Finished on a 38.2, but it could easily have been 35-ish without the big fail. I'd really like to try and pull my dressage average mark down this season to below 35 if I can - not easy on a horse built on a steep downhill slope, but he tries so hard.
SJ warm-up was much better than Oasby, although I did have a brief meltdown where I seemed to lose the ability to see a distance again. Horse was super awesome in the ring though and pinged his way around with enthusiasm, and ending up being the only horse in the class to jump clear without picking up any time faults. The SJ speed is distinctly quicker at intermediate, so it was good to know that we were 'on it'.
The cross country course at Lincoln had been beefed up in technicality since I last ran around the novice track in 2022 - but this did me a favour, because I was not complacent this time and actually remembered to ride all the way around. Course pics here. In particular, they really strengthened the water jump adding a two stride double, landing directly into water on the way in, with a quick turn to a skinny barrel on the way out. This was followed immediately by a skinny-corner-skinny turning combination which you had to have your line really secure to be able to make a nice job of. Anyway - horse was an absolute super star all the way around and nailed every combination without missing a beat. Finished 6 seconds under the time despite the soft ground, so was really pleased to have recorded an FOD and also climbed up to 4th place in the end too.
Little picture from the big drop from the pro photographer Julia Shearwood (which had a turning 5/6 strides to a skinny brush) - and also to note - I've worn navy jodhs for both events and happily everyone seems to be aware of the rule change and hasn't questioned me on it )
Next stop is (hopefully) Thoresby for the intermediate if it ever stops raining. Where is everyone else going next (to ride/spectate/volunteer)?
I know we've all been feeding into thousands of posts on the more negative thread - but thought it might be nice to have somewhere to share some event reports and things (like the good old days of HHO). Not just from those competing, but maybe also from people volunteering and spectating too?
Anyway - to kick things of - a couple of bits of news and some quick reports from my first two events of the season;
Tweseldown - announced yesterday that they're putting on an event THIS WEEKEND to replace Cirencester - and they've had an incredible 387 entries overnight
I think they're still looking for volunteers to support the event - and anyone going to volunteer/spectate looks like they'll have a fantastic range of 5* horses to watch...Chillington announced this morning that they're adding a novice class to the event on 1-2 June, which is good news for people in the NW and midlands as there aren't many others in the area around that time.
And then my first two events of the season...
Oasby - I ran on Friday 8th in the Open Novice. We did not have to be towed on or off, but the ground was clearly on the edge of becoming deep bog with any additional rain. Dressage warm-up I'd politely call 'tacky' - and being quite late on in the afternoon my arena featured deep sticky corners and a mud-hole at X. Did what I thought was a reasonable test given the conditions, but was a bit disappointed with a 37.something - however, even an established 5* horse with mid 20-s scores at 5* only scored a 31 - so I don't think the judge was giving marks away.
SJ warm-up was considerably worse - one of those occasions when you want to do the absolute bare minimum of jumping before going in. I had a stop in the warm-up where I just didn't ride well enough considering the conditions. Gave myself a talking to and rode much better in the ring for a decent clear round. To be fair to the organisers, huge effort had gone into keeping the going in the ring as good as possible, and whilst soft, it was being kept very level.
XC walked like a nice straightforward course (course pics here), but again, ground was holding. We were having a great spin around until the penultimate fence, which is just a little angled pheasant feeder with a short approach out of a thicket of bushes. I've jumped it several times before on this horse, and so complacency was my enemy and I totally missed my line, ended up jumping the wrong side of the flag over the intermediate fence by accident (which counted as a run-out), circled round, popped it and completed whilst mentally absolutely kicking myself for the ridiculous error. Drove home the 3 hours very, very, very cross with myself. Not the horse - horse had no idea he'd really done anything wrong as far as he was concerned.
Totally unsurprised they had to cancel the final day when it started raining - it was clearly on the edge of being able to run
Lincolnshire - I ran on Saturday in the Intermediate Novice. Long drive but an easier one than Oasby because you just get on the motorway and keep driving east from us! Horse was absolutely thrilled getting off the lorry to see that they had tasty unspoilt showground grass to snack on. You've never seen a horse come down a ramp so fast.
Dressage was actually decent ground to warm up on, and not bad in the arena. Test started out well enough, and felt like we were managing to maintain that better more uphill outline needed for intermediate, until I failed to keep my leg on going into the counter canter - broke, popped back up into non-counter canter, and then that meant we also missed doing a proper simple change immediately afterwards. I did some calculations and reckon that I lost about 2.5% with that one error, because it destroyed the mark for two movements. Eep! Finished on a 38.2, but it could easily have been 35-ish without the big fail. I'd really like to try and pull my dressage average mark down this season to below 35 if I can - not easy on a horse built on a steep downhill slope, but he tries so hard.
SJ warm-up was much better than Oasby, although I did have a brief meltdown where I seemed to lose the ability to see a distance again. Horse was super awesome in the ring though and pinged his way around with enthusiasm, and ending up being the only horse in the class to jump clear without picking up any time faults. The SJ speed is distinctly quicker at intermediate, so it was good to know that we were 'on it'.
The cross country course at Lincoln had been beefed up in technicality since I last ran around the novice track in 2022 - but this did me a favour, because I was not complacent this time and actually remembered to ride all the way around. Course pics here. In particular, they really strengthened the water jump adding a two stride double, landing directly into water on the way in, with a quick turn to a skinny barrel on the way out. This was followed immediately by a skinny-corner-skinny turning combination which you had to have your line really secure to be able to make a nice job of. Anyway - horse was an absolute super star all the way around and nailed every combination without missing a beat. Finished 6 seconds under the time despite the soft ground, so was really pleased to have recorded an FOD and also climbed up to 4th place in the end too.
Little picture from the big drop from the pro photographer Julia Shearwood (which had a turning 5/6 strides to a skinny brush) - and also to note - I've worn navy jodhs for both events and happily everyone seems to be aware of the rule change and hasn't questioned me on it
)Next stop is (hopefully) Thoresby for the intermediate if it ever stops raining. Where is everyone else going next (to ride/spectate/volunteer)?
. Flat lesson tomorrow and then dressage hopefully on Sunday.
)
