JennBags
HHOSS Wonder Woman
Well as promised, another report to cheer you all up on this grey and miserable Saturday.
Well the day started off fairly drizzly but warm, so I turned G out for an hour or so while I mucked out. Plaited him myself (I usually coerce someone else into doing this for me as I'm not very good!) and then had the stress of trying to load him, I swear he gets worse every time :rolleyes3: Got to Hickstead with plenty of time to spare, then my friend tacked up and went off while I got changed and got G ready; grabbed a local dog-walker to hold him while I leapt on, and went down to the warm up. He was very much on his toes, but once he started working and had other horses around him, he calmed down and worked beautifully. I try not to spend too long warming him up as he gets tired and/or bored quite easily.
Eventually the time comes for my first test, I can't even get him through to the area where the arenas are, so my friend (who'd just finished her test), walked me through. My next battle was getting to the International Arena: we had rearing, spinning, reversing until a kind lady took pity on me and grabbed his rein and led me through. Well, at least he was forward and off my leg I suppose! As my test was the first after a coffee break, the judge rang her bell fairly quickly and I hadn't had time to settle him, but off up the centre line we go; G was feeling quite good so I touched his sides with my legs to get a little more forward, but this was the wrong thing to do as it totally unsettled him, he wobbled all over the place and rushed it; things didn't get much better after that, we had several explosive moments but I tried my hardest to contain him and managed to execute most of the movements in the right place, and finish the test.
When we were collecting our sheets, I saw the judge who said to me "Well done for staying on and finishing the test, you were very brave to keep going". I think that probably says it all :biggrin3: We ended up with a score of 58% which really wasn't a bad score given the explosive bits. 10 of the 14 marks were 6's or 6.5's, and all of the comments were along the lines of him being unsettled and tense. Not quite last, 21 out of 22, so that's an improvement on our last outing, and the winner got 68ish% so marks weren't wildly out.
A short break and then in for the Novice, a different arena so we were pretty unsettled still, the wind had got up, and there seemed to be some shooting going on, so G was still a bit, erm, forward. I thought it went quite well, managed to not break to canter when doing the medium trot (thank you all for your advice last night!) but got to the end of the test very quickly. Judge leaned forward and said to me "now you've finished, he looks like he's settled enough to start!" He actually felt quite tired, we went back to the lorry, and can you believe the blasted horse went straight on the lorry, not a second of hesitation :rolleyes3:
We didn't stay around to get our sheets, but I finished with 59% in 3rd to last place - improving every time :biggrin3: Again the winner was only just over 10% ahead, so both classes were very close.
My friend won her prelim and has qualified for the championships
Oh, pictures. Sorry they're links but photobucket isn't playing ball tonight:
In one of his more explosive moments:
And looking like a poncy dressage pony:
Well the day started off fairly drizzly but warm, so I turned G out for an hour or so while I mucked out. Plaited him myself (I usually coerce someone else into doing this for me as I'm not very good!) and then had the stress of trying to load him, I swear he gets worse every time :rolleyes3: Got to Hickstead with plenty of time to spare, then my friend tacked up and went off while I got changed and got G ready; grabbed a local dog-walker to hold him while I leapt on, and went down to the warm up. He was very much on his toes, but once he started working and had other horses around him, he calmed down and worked beautifully. I try not to spend too long warming him up as he gets tired and/or bored quite easily.
Eventually the time comes for my first test, I can't even get him through to the area where the arenas are, so my friend (who'd just finished her test), walked me through. My next battle was getting to the International Arena: we had rearing, spinning, reversing until a kind lady took pity on me and grabbed his rein and led me through. Well, at least he was forward and off my leg I suppose! As my test was the first after a coffee break, the judge rang her bell fairly quickly and I hadn't had time to settle him, but off up the centre line we go; G was feeling quite good so I touched his sides with my legs to get a little more forward, but this was the wrong thing to do as it totally unsettled him, he wobbled all over the place and rushed it; things didn't get much better after that, we had several explosive moments but I tried my hardest to contain him and managed to execute most of the movements in the right place, and finish the test.
When we were collecting our sheets, I saw the judge who said to me "Well done for staying on and finishing the test, you were very brave to keep going". I think that probably says it all :biggrin3: We ended up with a score of 58% which really wasn't a bad score given the explosive bits. 10 of the 14 marks were 6's or 6.5's, and all of the comments were along the lines of him being unsettled and tense. Not quite last, 21 out of 22, so that's an improvement on our last outing, and the winner got 68ish% so marks weren't wildly out.
A short break and then in for the Novice, a different arena so we were pretty unsettled still, the wind had got up, and there seemed to be some shooting going on, so G was still a bit, erm, forward. I thought it went quite well, managed to not break to canter when doing the medium trot (thank you all for your advice last night!) but got to the end of the test very quickly. Judge leaned forward and said to me "now you've finished, he looks like he's settled enough to start!" He actually felt quite tired, we went back to the lorry, and can you believe the blasted horse went straight on the lorry, not a second of hesitation :rolleyes3:
We didn't stay around to get our sheets, but I finished with 59% in 3rd to last place - improving every time :biggrin3: Again the winner was only just over 10% ahead, so both classes were very close.
My friend won her prelim and has qualified for the championships
Oh, pictures. Sorry they're links but photobucket isn't playing ball tonight:
In one of his more explosive moments:
And looking like a poncy dressage pony:
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). I love your outlook - very similar to mine - and I love your optimism. Well done on your improvements - that's what it's all about. Just think, if you can get those scores of a windy, rainy, spooky day, think about what you can do on a sunny day 