Gamebird
Well-Known Member
In the hunt for some more challenging XC courses for Fugly, who is thus far finding BE100 XC ridiculously easy, someone mentioned that Hendersyde was a tough one. Knowing that Ian Stark was at the helm and also knowing that it would involve a weekend road trip I didn't need much persuading. Husband (Chef d'Equipe Extrordinaire) was in tow as a penance for forgetting our 5th wedding anniversary last weekend 
and he promised to take me out for dinner in Kelso on Saturday night to make amends.
We ventured north with some trepidation - I'm a born and bred Scot who emigrated south 11 years ago and CdEE is a born and bred Yorkshireman who thinks anywhere north of Darlington is marked on the map with 'Here Be Dragons'
, in fact he was to be heard muttering protective incantations under his breath as we passed over the border in Coldstream 
.
We pitched camp at the same yard as when we stayed for Floors last year with Joss and her OH and we definitely missed their camraderie (and drinking abilities!) this time round. In fact Fugs had the very same stable that Carthorse was in last year - possibly a bad omen?
I got the promised meal (at The Cobbles - lovely, and thanks for the recommendations!
) after a quick leg-stretch round the XC course. Boy does Mr. Stark like to build big! It was technical without being skinny - in fact barely a skinny to be seen - but the water was very grown up, the last fence was a real worry and every other fence had either a yawning ditch on take-off or falling ground on landing so that you couldn't quite see where you'd be landing when you took off.
Still scratching my head we headed off for a few drinks and a night in the tent, the only problem being the next morning when we came to take it down:
Our terrier had taken up residence in the folded groundsheet and refused to be evicted! But she looked so cute that we didn't mind 
.
Dressage was a LONG way from our parking spot (5yds from the XC start box - thanks! ), but I got the basics done before being sent in to do a reasonably good test - just ran a bit into the second canter transition.
Got a 6 for this halt - it is a bit overshot though. The comment was 'inattentive'
I got 39, which I was pleased enough with as the only scores that were up were well into the 40s. The marking seemed to get a bit lower later in the day a bit but ain't that always the case?
I was VERY pleased to see FigJam and Now_Loves_Mares appear at just the right moment in the SJ warm-up. CdEE has his uses, but doing practice fences ain't one of them! FJ and NLM 'owned' the fences and I jumped what I wanted to (or what FJ thought I should) and went in. The ring was on the biggest slope I've ever seen - you literally couldn't see the fences at the top when you were at the bottom. They'd put 3 downhill uprights in and two doubles. Again, thanks , just the thing for a gangly 17.1 5yo with dubious powers of balance.
This pic is of the last fence but is mostly to show the slope!
Anyway Fugs was at his most balanced and obliging and shortened beautifully where asked without even falling over. Result - a clear! It's been a long time coming at BE (he's only had one pole in his last 5 non-BE rounds), but I knew he had it in there somewhere!
And so to the XC where, for the first time ever, I felt mildly nervous. Was I asking too much of such a lovely genuine young horse?
To give you an idea this is the second (!) fence just as we're taking off (yup, the photographer's timing's rubbish), it's a wide oxer of brushes. Bear in mind that the horse is 17.1+....
Big enough? Anyway we cruised over that, managed to miss CdEE who was crouching in a very inappropriate spot to take the pic, into and out of the woods and over a drop log to the coffin - upright rails, two strides to ditch, one stride to upright rails out - fine. Phew! The next few were simple then a long gallop downhill (I confess to taking a large pull!) to a large log/brush spread with the biggest BE100 open ditch in front that I've ever seen. Lovely jump to that. The water hed 4 elements - hanging log on the lip of a steep, narrow ramp in, step out and 3 strides to a skinnyish barrel. You know the old adage 'never try to see a stride to a step out of water'? Well I didn't, but Fugly did and it was a stride before the one I had in mind. Managed to point roughly at the skinny which he popped then turned sharply for the next few fences.
Very unflattering shot of the bigggest single BE100 fence I've come across:
Popped very quickly through the second water, ditch palisade and through the wood to the last fence - a log approached off a turn through the trees and up a steep slope with a HUGE drop on landing, then 3 strides on rising ground to an angled upright. I'd seen people come too underpowered at the log and have stops so I perhaps came with a bit too much power on, got a huge, slightly skewiff jump and left the saddle. By some miracle I was re-united with the saddle on the way down and found myself aiming right for part b so kicked on and over the finish line. One very pleased Gamebird!!!!
CdEE and Fugly doing what they're both good at:
So I finished in joint 5th place. Sadly my XC time was 4.46 and the other girl's was 4.47 so she was fractionally closer to the OT and edged me into 6th. A shame as the 6th place rosette is a very bright pink tartan - SO not Fugly's colour!
Having been away all weekend I have nothing to offer except for some lovely cold lager and some Tunnock's Tea Cakes (my Scottish heritage hasn't deserted me!). Sorry it was so long - it would appear that I don't know when to shut up!
and he promised to take me out for dinner in Kelso on Saturday night to make amends.We ventured north with some trepidation - I'm a born and bred Scot who emigrated south 11 years ago and CdEE is a born and bred Yorkshireman who thinks anywhere north of Darlington is marked on the map with 'Here Be Dragons'
, in fact he was to be heard muttering protective incantations under his breath as we passed over the border in Coldstream .We pitched camp at the same yard as when we stayed for Floors last year with Joss and her OH and we definitely missed their camraderie (and drinking abilities!) this time round. In fact Fugs had the very same stable that Carthorse was in last year - possibly a bad omen?
I got the promised meal (at The Cobbles - lovely, and thanks for the recommendations!
) after a quick leg-stretch round the XC course. Boy does Mr. Stark like to build big! It was technical without being skinny - in fact barely a skinny to be seen - but the water was very grown up, the last fence was a real worry and every other fence had either a yawning ditch on take-off or falling ground on landing so that you couldn't quite see where you'd be landing when you took off.Still scratching my head we headed off for a few drinks and a night in the tent, the only problem being the next morning when we came to take it down:
Our terrier had taken up residence in the folded groundsheet and refused to be evicted!
But she looked so cute that we didn't mind .Dressage was a LONG way from our parking spot (5yds from the XC start box - thanks!
), but I got the basics done before being sent in to do a reasonably good test - just ran a bit into the second canter transition.Got a 6 for this halt - it is a bit overshot though. The comment was 'inattentive'
I got 39, which I was pleased enough with as the only scores that were up were well into the 40s. The marking seemed to get a bit lower later in the day a bit but ain't that always the case?
I was VERY pleased to see FigJam and Now_Loves_Mares appear at just the right moment in the SJ warm-up. CdEE has his uses, but doing practice fences ain't one of them! FJ and NLM 'owned' the fences and I jumped what I wanted to (or what FJ thought I should
) and went in. The ring was on the biggest slope I've ever seen - you literally couldn't see the fences at the top when you were at the bottom. They'd put 3 downhill uprights in and two doubles. Again, thanks , just the thing for a gangly 17.1 5yo with dubious powers of balance.This pic is of the last fence but is mostly to show the slope!
Anyway Fugs was at his most balanced and obliging and shortened beautifully where asked without even falling over. Result - a clear! It's been a long time coming at BE (he's only had one pole in his last 5 non-BE rounds
), but I knew he had it in there somewhere! And so to the XC where, for the first time ever, I felt mildly nervous. Was I asking too much of such a lovely genuine young horse?
To give you an idea this is the second (!) fence just as we're taking off (yup, the photographer's timing's rubbish
), it's a wide oxer of brushes. Bear in mind that the horse is 17.1+....
Big enough? Anyway we cruised over that, managed to miss CdEE who was crouching in a very inappropriate spot to take the pic, into and out of the woods and over a drop log to the coffin - upright rails, two strides to ditch, one stride to upright rails out - fine. Phew! The next few were simple then a long gallop downhill (I confess to taking a large pull!) to a large log/brush spread with the biggest BE100 open ditch in front that I've ever seen. Lovely jump to that. The water hed 4 elements - hanging log on the lip of a steep, narrow ramp in, step out and 3 strides to a skinnyish barrel. You know the old adage 'never try to see a stride to a step out of water'? Well I didn't, but Fugly did and it was a stride before the one I had in mind
. Managed to point roughly at the skinny which he popped then turned sharply for the next few fences.Very unflattering shot of the bigggest single BE100 fence I've come across:
Popped very quickly through the second water, ditch palisade and through the wood to the last fence - a log approached off a turn through the trees and up a steep slope with a HUGE drop on landing, then 3 strides on rising ground to an angled upright. I'd seen people come too underpowered at the log and have stops so I perhaps came with a bit too much power on, got a huge, slightly skewiff jump and left the saddle. By some miracle I was re-united with the saddle on the way down and found myself aiming right for part b so kicked on and over the finish line. One very pleased Gamebird!!!!
CdEE and Fugly doing what they're both good at:
So I finished in joint 5th place. Sadly my XC time was 4.46 and the other girl's was 4.47 so she was fractionally closer to the OT and edged me into 6th. A shame as the 6th place rosette is a very bright pink tartan - SO not Fugly's colour!
Having been away all weekend I have nothing to offer except for some lovely cold lager and some Tunnock's Tea Cakes (my Scottish heritage hasn't deserted me!). Sorry it was so long - it would appear that I don't know when to shut up!
and great pics. They are positively pro pics compared to the ones my sis took yesterday (but shhh don't tell her!!!). She assures me the dressage vid is good but I have yet to see it...
Thought it would have been too much of a trek and you'd have been fed up of the place after spending all Sat there! 
