Baydale
Well-Known Member
...I know I am, but I forgot to pack the camcorder on Tuesday. 
So, expect this report to be hugely descriptive, full of exaggeration and with emoticon over-use. You have been warned. 
Another early o'clock start so not suprisingly both Cal and Jup were fast asleep when I went out to feed, neither being in a hurry to get up and indeed the latter looking over his shoulder at me as if to say "well bring it here then!"
On arrival I whizzed around the course while SuperFran polished the ponies, and I was most impressed with the efforts they'd gone to with the ground: aerovating and it looked like watering too, with plenty of grass cover in most places. The course was fine - mucky-coloured water that looked a bit the same as the ground around it, a couple of bigger, beefier plain fences, a step/ditch/brush and an oval pimple - but nothing I was too worried about.
Dressage, now that's something to worry about when you look at the test (N114) and do this face. Two lots of lengthened strides in trot and canter followed by cantering across the diagonal and trotting at X. Hmmm, not that difficult I hear you say, but as Jup has ADHD and Cal lacks balance - a fairly important ingredient when you're being asked to do those things - and the arena is on a bit of a slope with a cross country fence next to it....now you understand my anxiety, don't you? 
Jup first, following a very smart horse who sashayed around the warm-up, taunting me. As expected, Jup was transfixed by the horse-eating xc fence throughout the test, and threw in an unwanted changed after his medium canter (show-off 
), so I was suprised to get a relatively ok mark of 34.8. Moo Cow Cal was punching well above his weight in this test, and even with a fab warm-up where he did everything, including trotting with elevation, really well, it still fell apart when I went in there and he scuttled around, struggling with the downhill bits, not showing any medium trot, breaking in one medium to working canter transition, boo. It's improved a lot and he tries so hard, but it's just not there yet, oh well. I was shocked to hear he'd got 36.7 (don't get too excited, the score was wrong, but more of that later) and couldn't quite understand how. 
Now for the fun bits.
The showjumping was on a bit of a slope too and the course designer had built a decent track, but with a spooky oxer to a double to an upright, all downhill and on a left-handed curve to finish. After the luxury of a surface at Eland (when I still couldn't get all the fences to stay up ) I wasn't too excited about how we'd cope with a bigger track on grass, but hey, you've gotta be in it to win it, so I dug out the sterner stuff that I'm supposedly made of and got on with it. Cal and I lacked communication at the second fence (no back teeth were removed thanks to my rubber snaffle ) so he hooned over the third (downhill) before objecting so much to my half-halt (whole-halt, more like 
) that he almost stopped dead, swung his bum out to the left and I had to pop it on a 45 degree angle (thank God for Lionel, as he often makes me do that!) The rest was a bit erratic but somehow - I'm thinking a winter of don't-panic-Mr-Mainwaring LD training (reference to a tv programme called Dad's Army, for any young hho-ers) - we kept it together and he jumped clear.
Jupiter and his ADHD have been a thorn in my side lately so I'd had a bootcamp week with him of demanding his attention and not letting his inner comedian out. It seemed to have done the trick as he was a very good boy and also jumped clear. Yay. Sorry I can't be more descriptive, but just picture his round, bay cuteness and I'll put a link to the photos once they're up.
Jup was first to go xc and we were all fired up, had got all the grunts out of him - that's what he does when it's all such hard work, it's the nearest he can get to lodging a complaint about his treatment - when there was a hold on course as someone had gone a over t at the trakehner. I rattled his cage as we came out of the start box and that was it, we were off, purposeful, straight, forward, with only the odd distracted moment of staring at the fence judge's car. He was pretty much foot perfect the whole way round (other than I tried to showjump the pimple and he hollowed majorly ), and even hooned up the hill home with me. Big pats for him then.
Cal next, and they were still saying I had the 36.7 dressage of my dreams, so I set off positively, trying not to hassle Cal but playing my best supportive role, helping a bit without irritating him. He was cute as a button into the water, not over-jumping in a tense way, and really taking the fences on. I can't fault him at all but I think I'm about due for a bit change as he didn't feel so easy to rebalance as he has done, but I've been trying not to over-bit him and be too dominant xc. Anyhoo, superstar Moo Cow skipped round, no eyelid-batting anywhere and feeling really secure and confident.
I was right at the end of the class so they were announcing provisional scores, saying that I was 4th on Jup and 8th on Cal. Yay, or it would have been yay if they hadn't completely and utterly got Cal's dressage wrong as it was actually 42.9 - and justifiably so. Lesson to be learnt is that if something appears to be too good to be true, then it probably is.
So, Cal was 17th, not 8th, but Jup was definitely 4th and won the most inappropriate prize ever for a horse like him: a day out with the Farmers Bloodhounds. Methinks some other sucker, I mean brave person, can take him.
Sorry for the yawn-worthy vid-free report, but I can offer you melon and Caramel biscuits, washed down with builders' tea if you've made it this far. I'll put the link to the photos up asap, as there are lots of comical-faced, cute-faced and pointy-big-eared photos.
So, expect this report to be hugely descriptive, full of exaggeration and with emoticon over-use. You have been warned. Another early o'clock start so not suprisingly both Cal and Jup were fast asleep when I went out to feed, neither being in a hurry to get up and indeed the latter looking over his shoulder at me as if to say "well bring it here then!"
On arrival I whizzed around the course while SuperFran polished the ponies, and I was most impressed with the efforts they'd gone to with the ground: aerovating and it looked like watering too, with plenty of grass cover in most places. The course was fine - mucky-coloured water that looked a bit the same as the ground around it, a couple of bigger, beefier plain fences, a step/ditch/brush and an oval pimple - but nothing I was too worried about.
Dressage, now that's something to worry about when you look at the test (N114) and do this face
. Two lots of lengthened strides in trot and canter followed by cantering across the diagonal and trotting at X. Hmmm, not that difficult I hear you say, but as Jup has ADHD and Cal lacks balance - a fairly important ingredient when you're being asked to do those things - and the arena is on a bit of a slope with a cross country fence next to it....now you understand my anxiety, don't you? Jup first, following a very smart horse who sashayed around the warm-up, taunting me.
As expected, Jup was transfixed by the horse-eating xc fence throughout the test, and threw in an unwanted changed after his medium canter (show-off ), so I was suprised to get a relatively ok mark of 34.8. Moo Cow Cal was punching well above his weight in this test, and even with a fab warm-up where he did everything, including trotting with elevation, really well, it still fell apart when I went in there and he scuttled around, struggling with the downhill bits, not showing any medium trot, breaking in one medium to working canter transition, boo. It's improved a lot and he tries so hard, but it's just not there yet, oh well. I was shocked to hear he'd got 36.7 (don't get too excited, the score was wrong, but more of that later) and couldn't quite understand how. Now for the fun bits.
The showjumping was on a bit of a slope too and the course designer had built a decent track, but with a spooky oxer to a double to an upright, all downhill and on a left-handed curve to finish. After the luxury of a surface at Eland (when I still couldn't get all the fences to stay up ) I wasn't too excited about how we'd cope with a bigger track on grass, but hey, you've gotta be in it to win it, so I dug out the sterner stuff that I'm supposedly made of and got on with it. Cal and I lacked communication at the second fence (no back teeth were removed thanks to my rubber snaffle ) so he hooned over the third (downhill) before objecting so much to my half-halt (whole-halt, more like ) that he almost stopped dead, swung his bum out to the left and I had to pop it on a 45 degree angle (thank God for Lionel, as he often makes me do that!) The rest was a bit erratic but somehow - I'm thinking a winter of don't-panic-Mr-Mainwaring LD training (reference to a tv programme called Dad's Army, for any young hho-ers) - we kept it together and he jumped clear. Jupiter and his ADHD have been a thorn in my side lately so I'd had a bootcamp week with him of demanding his attention and not letting his inner comedian out. It seemed to have done the trick as he was a very good boy and also jumped clear. Yay.
Sorry I can't be more descriptive, but just picture his round, bay cuteness and I'll put a link to the photos once they're up.Jup was first to go xc and we were all fired up, had got all the grunts out of him - that's what he does when it's all such hard work, it's the nearest he can get to lodging a complaint about his treatment
- when there was a hold on course as someone had gone a over t at the trakehner. I rattled his cage as we came out of the start box and that was it, we were off, purposeful, straight, forward, with only the odd distracted moment of staring at the fence judge's car. He was pretty much foot perfect the whole way round (other than I tried to showjump the pimple and he hollowed majorly ), and even hooned up the hill home with me. Big pats for him then.Cal next, and they were still saying I had the 36.7 dressage of my dreams
, so I set off positively, trying not to hassle Cal but playing my best supportive role, helping a bit without irritating him. He was cute as a button into the water, not over-jumping in a tense way, and really taking the fences on. I can't fault him at all but I think I'm about due for a bit change as he didn't feel so easy to rebalance as he has done, but I've been trying not to over-bit him and be too dominant xc. Anyhoo, superstar Moo Cow skipped round, no eyelid-batting anywhere and feeling really secure and confident. I was right at the end of the class so they were announcing provisional scores, saying that I was 4th on Jup and 8th on Cal. Yay
, or it would have been yay if they hadn't completely and utterly got Cal's dressage wrong as it was actually 42.9 - and justifiably so. Lesson to be learnt is that if something appears to be too good to be true, then it probably is. So, Cal was 17th, not 8th
, but Jup was definitely 4th and won the most inappropriate prize ever for a horse like him: a day out with the Farmers Bloodhounds. Methinks some other sucker, I mean brave person, can take him. Sorry for the yawn-worthy vid-free report, but I can offer you melon and Caramel biscuits, washed down with builders' tea if you've made it this far. I'll put the link to the photos up asap, as there are lots of comical-faced, cute-faced and pointy-big-eared photos.
