ahml100
Well-Known Member
Dear All,
Firstly, as the title says if you remember us a big hello from team ahml100 and if you don't, a warm welcome and I hope you enjoy
As you all can probably gather, I have had a rather large holiday (7 months) from any sort of reports. Sadly after my last report where we had completed Tweseldown BE Novice with another clear xc we headed over to do another BE Novice at BCA, with the hope of coming to grips with our dressage nemesis. Sadly though, this was not the case and after feeling not quite right in the dressage, we were seriously considering withdrawing before the jumping. However, after a clear SJ we decided to tackle the xc but after Alf feeling very lacklustre and unhappy I retired as I knew something was not quite right. We then got the back person and the saddler out where it had turned out non of his saddles fitted and his back was completely wrong, I still feel so bad that I failed to spot these signs sooner and was most probably the reason why the dressage was going wrong 
So, as I was off to Spain the following week anyway, Alf had his shoes removed and enjoyed a lovely 6 week holiday over June/July with the sun on his back getting lovely and fat! He had a lovely time and after another appointment with the back lady, a nice new saddle, we finished the rest of the summer building his fitness back up.
We hit September with a game plan but, as I had managed to injure my knee trampolining (!) and having started my Law MA at Bristol, he had another couple of months chilling with light exercise, the back person came out again and gave him the clean bill of health!-so so happy!! we then spent November/December doing lots of hill work and schooling, and wow, what a difference. Gone is the horse who is trying to bottle up but instead stretching over his back and really engaging his hind-end. We have also, for Show Jumping, started to school him back in his snaffle as I found with the gag, going SJ he wasn't maintaining the contact but instead he kept on dropping off than grabbing it just before the fences. He was schooling fantastically and this led us to yesterday.
We decided, that as we had not been competing for so long we would just enter the 100cm and the 105cm, as it would be big enough to keep his attention but small enough that if the snaffle did not provide enough breaks he wouldn't scare himself! after a quick warm up we headed down to jump our round, and oh my gosh! he was fantastic! He kept the contact the whole way round and jumped out of his skin! So much so, my lower that I had been working on completely went to pot! (I apologise in advance for when you see the picture!) He felt like a completely different horse and we skipped round with a DC to come fifth! After that, and it was getting late we withdrew from the 105cm as we wanted to finish on a good note! Hopefully, we will be out competing some more before the eventing season if Uni allows, thanks for reading and here is the complementary photo!
Firstly, as the title says if you remember us a big hello from team ahml100 and if you don't, a warm welcome and I hope you enjoy
As you all can probably gather, I have had a rather large holiday (7 months) from any sort of reports. Sadly after my last report where we had completed Tweseldown BE Novice with another clear xc we headed over to do another BE Novice at BCA, with the hope of coming to grips with our dressage nemesis. Sadly though, this was not the case and after feeling not quite right in the dressage, we were seriously considering withdrawing before the jumping. However, after a clear SJ we decided to tackle the xc but after Alf feeling very lacklustre and unhappy I retired as I knew something was not quite right. We then got the back person and the saddler out where it had turned out non of his saddles fitted and his back was completely wrong, I still feel so bad that I failed to spot these signs sooner and was most probably the reason why the dressage was going wrong So, as I was off to Spain the following week anyway, Alf had his shoes removed and enjoyed a lovely 6 week holiday over June/July with the sun on his back getting lovely and fat! He had a lovely time and after another appointment with the back lady, a nice new saddle, we finished the rest of the summer building his fitness back up. We hit September with a game plan but, as I had managed to injure my knee trampolining (!) and having started my Law MA at Bristol, he had another couple of months chilling with light exercise, the back person came out again and gave him the clean bill of health!-so so happy!! we then spent November/December doing lots of hill work and schooling, and wow, what a difference. Gone is the horse who is trying to bottle up but instead stretching over his back and really engaging his hind-end. We have also, for Show Jumping, started to school him back in his snaffle as I found with the gag, going SJ he wasn't maintaining the contact but instead he kept on dropping off than grabbing it just before the fences. He was schooling fantastically and this led us to yesterday.
We decided, that as we had not been competing for so long we would just enter the 100cm and the 105cm, as it would be big enough to keep his attention but small enough that if the snaffle did not provide enough breaks he wouldn't scare himself! after a quick warm up we headed down to jump our round, and oh my gosh! he was fantastic! He kept the contact the whole way round and jumped out of his skin! So much so, my lower that I had been working on completely went to pot! (I apologise in advance for when you see the picture!) He felt like a completely different horse and we skipped round with a DC to come fifth! After that, and it was getting late we withdrew from the 105cm as we wanted to finish on a good note! Hopefully, we will be out competing some more before the eventing season if Uni allows, thanks for reading and here is the complementary photo!
