Baydale
Well-Known Member
I decided last weekend that I'd take Hector to Aston instead of HumungaHorse (who was a bit tired, a bit bored, and made a point of reminding me that he was only 6 and more than ready for the holiday I'd mentioned not so long ago
), so Hector and I had three days of panic tuning-up, including a very good jumping lesson the day before - you try doing nothing on the approach to a v wide 1.25m oxer with no groundline when you're riding Mr So-Laid-Back-I'm-Horizontal, but it certainly gave us both something to think about.
Hector felt a bit tight warming-up for stressage, but I tried a different approach and was pleasantly surprised to be able to get better, looser work rather than tighter work as a result. Ok, he was a bit more keen on his downwards transitions than his upwards ones
, but it was a v rideable test and other than a couple of iffy halts I was pretty pleased with it.
The showjumping warm-up was a bit of a bunfight, but my able assistants (BBs and Mrs T) managed to assert themselves and get me and the boy pinging over a few big 'uns. I'm a bit tired at the mo, and I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer even when I'm not tired
, so I was struggling a bit to see a really good spot at every fence. I saw a very *ahem* forward stride to the big oxer at 6, and clever pony flew it, then he came round to the treble and saw a mass of pink and purple poles, which he backed off a bit and just had the middle part down
. When I looked later there were only 5 or 6 clears in my section, so it caused some problems.
Onto cross country, and despite Hector and I looking like we barely had the energy between us to make it over the practice fence, we set sail and gave it our best shot. I have to say that, other than me hooking/organising/interfering to the log pile after the water, we flew round hitting every fence (not literally
) on a fab, forward stride, and he kept a really good rhythm, not flat out, just really positive and he made it feel like a pre-novice. I was like this
the whole way round, which I'm sure my camera crew
- TalaveraII - will have captured. Big pats and polos for the clever pony, and even more polos when we found out I only had 2.8 time to add to my 28.2
dressage, and my 4 from showjumping, so I finished on 35 and was second.....yay!
Even bigger yay as that means Hector is now officially advanced with 66 points - I am so proud of my pony.
I've still got another intermediate run at Henbury as the ballot date has passed, before entering the big competitive world of OIs
and I'm planning on doing the advanced at Witton too.
Tea and Jaffa cakes if you've made it this far.
TalaveraII will hopefully upload the vid so you can cc it (be gentle with me!)
Hector felt a bit tight warming-up for stressage, but I tried a different approach and was pleasantly surprised to be able to get better, looser work rather than tighter work as a result. Ok, he was a bit more keen on his downwards transitions than his upwards ones
The showjumping warm-up was a bit of a bunfight, but my able assistants (BBs and Mrs T) managed to assert themselves and get me and the boy pinging over a few big 'uns. I'm a bit tired at the mo, and I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer even when I'm not tired
Onto cross country, and despite Hector and I looking like we barely had the energy between us to make it over the practice fence, we set sail and gave it our best shot. I have to say that, other than me hooking/organising/interfering to the log pile after the water, we flew round hitting every fence (not literally
Even bigger yay as that means Hector is now officially advanced with 66 points - I am so proud of my pony.
Tea and Jaffa cakes if you've made it this far.
