Eventing 2024 Season Thread

[spacefaer]

So Sunday at Solihull was not our day. One word to describe it - flies. Who knew he hated them so much and who knew he'd be such a diva about them. Disappointing from that point of view and not great on paper but the takeaways were very very positive!
Very relaxed around the lorry, and in the warm up and most of the test very chilled in the show jumping warmup but attacked by flies during his round. And effortless around the xc, for his 2nd ever event and his 1st 100.

So promising but disappointing. In almost equal measure! .I still bought pics because I think he's very photogenic!

 

[Squeak]

Well done RF and Spacefaer great to see the exracers out eventing and looking so good

 

[spacefaer]

Thanks @Squeak
he's definitely a very exciting prospect.
If my OH lets me keep him

 

[TheMule]

We finally made it to our second event of the season and Nova's first BE100 (about 18months later than scheduled thanks to Nova's propensity to sabotage all event plans in ever more ridiculous manners)
Much improved dressage for a 32 despite a chaotic warm up (tiny area, warming up for 4 tests, and Nova is quite horse shy!) Still loads of work to do over the winter, but he will do a very smart test as the balance improves, and he does try hard.
He then jumped a cracking SJ round with a pole where our slight right shoulder bulge and my holding rather than pushing got us a bit close to the final double, but the height feels very easy and he's jumping really well.
The xc was plenty technical enough for his first go at the level and the one I was worried about caught us out- it was a wide brush parallel on a downhill slope quite quickly after a turn through a gap in the hedge and he just didn’t understand the question. He was super brave to go on the 3rd attempt and cruised round the rest very confidently so no harm done, just a good learning day.
I got a memory pop up on my phone just before I went SJ to tell me it's 15years to the day since his I rode his dam round Highclere Intermediate (now that really was scary!!) and it's just such a special feeling to have her son out doing the job. He's very different to her in most ways (he's actually a lot, lot easier and more talented, but sadly I've got older and much less brave ), but he has her heart and I really do adore him.



And a little tribute to his mother, 15years on

 

[daffy44]

Well done TM! His technique over a fence is fantastic, sure you dont want to show jump?! How special that he's a homebred too.

 

[TheMule]

Well done TM! His technique over a fence is fantastic, sure you dont want to show jump?! How special that he's a homebred too.

I will do some SJing on him too, but the buzz you get from going xc just isn’t matched by an SJ round
Though the price, distance to good venues and lack of preparation effort required are quite convincing arguments!

 

[daffy44]

I will do some SJing on him too, but the buzz you get from going xc just isn’t matched by an SJ round
Though the price, distance to good venues and lack of preparation effort required are quite convincing arguments!

I agree, no contest in terms of adrenaline rush!

 

[iknowmyvalue]

We finally made it to our second event of the season and Nova's first BE100 (about 18months later than scheduled thanks to Nova's propensity to sabotage all event plans in ever more ridiculous manners)
Much improved dressage for a 32 despite a chaotic warm up (tiny area, warming up for 4 tests, and Nova is quite horse shy!) Still loads of work to do over the winter, but he will do a very smart test as the balance improves, and he does try hard.
He then jumped a cracking SJ round with a pole where our slight right shoulder bulge and my holding rather than pushing got us a bit close to the final double, but the height feels very easy and he's jumping really well.
The xc was plenty technical enough for his first go at the level and the one I was worried about caught us out- it was a wide brush parallel on a downhill slope quite quickly after a turn through a gap in the hedge and he just didn’t understand the question. He was super brave to go on the 3rd attempt and cruised round the rest very confidently so no harm done, just a good learning day.
I got a memory pop up on my phone just before I went SJ to tell me it's 15years to the day since his I rode his dam round Highclere Intermediate (now that really was scary!!) and it's just such a special feeling to have her son out doing the job. He's very different to her in most ways (he's actually a lot, lot easier and more talented, but sadly I've got older and much less brave ), but he has her heart and I really do adore him.

View attachment 145687

And a little tribute to his mother, 15years on

View attachment 145688

Congrats! It was a tricky course, those brushes caused a lot of issues, and they were enormous!! He looks super, bet you’re excited for the future with him

 

[iknowmyvalue]

like TM we were at Chard yesterday. The 90 seemed to be causing carnage, especially fences 4 and 5. Though I don’t really know why, I rode the course and still am not really sure why they caused SO many problems…

Had a lovely, but soggy day to come 2nd in our section. Finished on our dressage of 32.5! I was very nervous about the XC, especially the brush box to corner dog leg, but he flew everything and made it feel easy!

 

[TheMule]

Congrats! It was a tricky course, those brushes caused a lot of issues, and they were enormous!! He looks super, bet you’re excited for the future with him

Thank you! I thought it was quite an ask for 100 level just with the added complexity of the slope and not much time to sight it after the gap in the hedge. If it had been a couple of strides on level ground I think we'd have been ok. But he has to learn somehow if he's to go up the levels, and you don’t get questions like this out xc schooling!

 

[TheMule]

like TM we were at Chard yesterday. The 90 seemed to be causing carnage, especially fences 4 and 5. Though I don’t really know why, I rode the course and still am not really sure why they caused SO many problems…

Had a lovely, but soggy day to come 2nd in our section. Finished on our dressage of 32.5! I was very nervous about the XC, especially the brush box to corner dog leg, but he flew everything and made it feel easy!

View attachment 145717
View attachment 145718

Brilliant result, well done!! Lovely photos
You definitely had the worst of the weather and the ground wasn’t easy.
I watched quite a few jump that 90 combination at fence 5 and the problems I saw were mostly horses spooking away from the hedge and at the saw on the 2nd element. I think when you run around 3 small fences in the warm up field then have to go away from everything and get faced with a steep downhill and some up to height spreads it catches the greener horses and riders out.

 

[LEC]

My BE coach friend asked WFP why it was causing so many issues and he said most people at that level did not have the horse in front of their leg. They would free wheel down the hill, balance horse on the hand and then not have horse in front of the leg for the two effectively table fences.

 

[iknowmyvalue]

Brilliant result, well done!! Lovely photos
You definitely had the worst of the weather and the ground wasn’t easy.
I watched quite a few jump that 90 combination at fence 5 and the problems I saw were mostly horses spooking away from the hedge and at the saw on the 2nd element. I think when you run around 3 small fences in the warm up field then have to go away from everything and get faced with a steep downhill and some up to height spreads it catches the greener horses and riders out.

They’d taken the saw on the 2nd element out yesterday, not sure if that helped as stats aren’t separated for sat/sun. Maybe I’m lucky in that my 2 eventers have been entirely non spooky! Nappy maybe, hard to turn definitely, but not spooky. Did think the warmup fences were pretty small for a 90 though!

My BE coach friend asked WFP why it was causing so many issues and he said most people at that level did not have the horse in front of their leg. They would free wheel down the hill, balance horse on the hand and then not have horse in front of the leg for the two effectively table fences.

That’s really interesting. I was talking to a friend earlier and we came to a similar conclusion about fence 4, horses running down the hill on the forehand and getting it wrong to the table. Usually tables jump better than they look, but not yesterday!

 

[TheMule]

They’d taken the saw on the 2nd element out yesterday, not sure if that helped as stats aren’t separated for sat/sun. Maybe I’m lucky in that my 2 eventers have been entirely non spooky! Nappy maybe, hard to turn definitely, but not spooky. Did think the warmup fences were pretty small for a 90 though!


That’s really interesting. I was talking to a friend earlier and we came to a similar conclusion about fence 4, horses running down the hill on the forehand and getting it wrong to the table. Usually tables jump better than they look, but not yesterday!

Interesting that they took the saw out- it’s not an unusual fence, but normally just out in the open. I think it was a combination of several different factors adding together. The second half of the course was small and easy- perhaps just got the course design a fraction wrong

 

[LEC]

@iknowmyvalue are you going to anymore regionals?

 

[iknowmyvalue]

@iknowmyvalue are you going to anymore regionals?

Sadly I don’t think so, I can’t make the dates for Chillington and Little Downham is too far to do it in a weekend. Though I am planning to do Bicton 3DE in October!

I’m fairly sure I’m right in thinking my qualification now “lasts” until next years RFs though, so I’ll just use it then

 

[TheMule]

It was with some trepidation that we headed up to Little Gatcombe today- the weather forecast was awful and we drove through torrential rain. But as we headed up the hill out of Stroud the skies cleared and we actually mostly managed to stay dry. The rain had taken a bit of a toll on the ground but it wasn’t bad ground and it's really good for Nova to learn to cope in different conditions.
He did a sweet dressage test, shame I turned the wrong way down the first centre line and a few marks dropped here and there- plenty of winter work to do! We scored 33.5 which was off the pace, so we do need to smarten it up a lot more to be competitive at this level.
The SJ warm up was a bit cut up so I quickly discovered he just jumps higher out of muddy ground! I didn’t jump too much because he was going high and I didn’t want to scare him, but then I probably was a gear down on what I should have been in the SJ into the oxers and we hit a couple of duff strides. Luckily he's a good boy and doesn’t really mind helping me out so he jumped clear ️
We went straight to the xc from the SJ and he was like a different horse in the warm up- he suddenly lit up and was towing me into fences which is a nice feeling! I was a bit worried about fence 4 which was a steeply angled double of houses on 1 stride. He has a short stride and the sticky ground was a bit holding too, plus the couple I watched were finding it long. He was clever and careful to pop in 2 little ones and after that we were away. He is a bit slow so I have to be really mindful to keep the revs and ride him away from his fences and today he really got that. He was very cautious through the waters which were very cut up which cost us a fair amount of time (more winter homework!) but he was jumping the plain fences really nicely out of his stride.
We finished with a double clear and 2.8 time. I'm chuffed with him, he was just super

 

[Jeni the dragon]

He's a really smart looking wee guy!

 

[RachelFerd]

It was with some trepidation that we headed up to Little Gatcombe today- the weather forecast was awful and we drove through torrential rain. But as we headed up the hill out of Stroud the skies cleared and we actually mostly managed to stay dry. The rain had taken a bit of a toll on the ground but it wasn’t bad ground and it's really good for Nova to learn to cope in different conditions.
He did a sweet dressage test, shame I turned the wrong way down the first centre line and a few marks dropped here and there- plenty of winter work to do! We scored 33.5 which was off the pace, so we do need to smarten it up a lot more to be competitive at this level.
The SJ warm up was a bit cut up so I quickly discovered he just jumps higher out of muddy ground! I didn’t jump too much because he was going high and I didn’t want to scare him, but then I probably was a gear down on what I should have been in the SJ into the oxers and we hit a couple of duff strides. Luckily he's a good boy and doesn’t really mind helping me out so he jumped clear ️
We went straight to the xc from the SJ and he was like a different horse in the warm up- he suddenly lit up and was towing me into fences which is a nice feeling! I was a bit worried about fence 4 which was a steeply angled double of houses on 1 stride. He has a short stride and the sticky ground was a bit holding too, plus the couple I watched were finding it long. He was clever and careful to pop in 2 little ones and after that we were away. He is a bit slow so I have to be really mindful to keep the revs and ride him away from his fences and today he really got that. He was very cautious through the waters which were very cut up which cost us a fair amount of time (more winter homework!) but he was jumping the plain fences really nicely out of his stride.
We finished with a double clear and 2.8 time. I'm chuffed with him, he was just super

View attachment 147013

View attachment 147014

Fabulous!

 

[Ample Prosecco]

@TheMule what a fantastic run!! Well done

 

[TheMule]

Thanks all- it has been a long time coming and a good lesson in patience to get to this point. Just a shame there are now no South West events for him to go to for another month but we might try and get to Bovington, if winter doesn’t arrive first

 

[LEC]

Go to Bovington…..

 

[TheMule]

Go to Bovington…..

Only if my super groom is available

 

[LEC]

At least you recognise excellence…. And got lunch paid for as well. Most expensive burger ever

 

[Gatley2035]

Well done!

 

[myheartinahoofbeat]

So Sunday at Solihull was not our day. One word to describe it - flies. Who knew he hated them so much and who knew he'd be such a diva about them. Disappointing from that point of view and not great on paper but the takeaways were very very positive!
Very relaxed around the lorry, and in the warm up and most of the test very chilled in the show jumping warmup but attacked by flies during his round. And effortless around the xc, for his 2nd ever event and his 1st 100.

So promising but disappointing. In almost equal measure! .I still bought pics because I think he's very photogenic!

Shame about the flies. I’ve had that issue too at an ODE which resulted in my best dressage judge comment ever ‘ pity being chased by a fly’