HotToTrot
Well-Known Member
I felt a bit sheepish about Goring Heath. Initially, I'd entered the Novice. The idea was to have a nice easy run there after the Intermediate at Gatcombe. Then, buoyed by my (relative) success at Oasby Novice, I'd concluded that no, nothing could possibly go wrong at Gatcombe, of course I wouldn't need a Nov run afterwards, and the only remotely sensible course of action would be to w/d from Goring and head to Belton Intermediate. Then Gatcombe-gate occurred. Cap in hand, I w/d from Belton and went pleading to the entries secretary at Goring. Entires had closed, but could she possibly fit me in...?
Ever supportive, my husband offered to lunge Vito before my dressage. "Do you know how to do this?" I asked, doubtfully. "Not hard, is it?", he snorted, "I just pull him around a bit on the end of a rope." So, with the baby strapped onto his chest in the baby carrier, and Vito plodding along on the end of the lunge line, he went off to lunge whilst I got changed in the trailer. Anxiously, I tried to be far enough out of the trailer so I could keep an eye on the husband/horse/baby chaos that was unfolding, whilst being far enough in the trailer that my unsuspecting lorry park neighbours would not be subjected to the sight of my bare bottom as I hastily stipped off into my cream jods. It's less than straightforward to shout lunging instructions at a baby-wearing husband when one is semi naked in the back of a horse box. I think this lasted for abut two mins, then we went over to the DR.
"So", said my husband, after consulting with the steward. "We may have got your time wrong. You're in now." I said nothing. What could I say? Even if I'd had the faintest chance to warm up, I doubt it would have made any difference. Our DR tests this season have consisted of Vito resisting, tensing and wiggling, and our marks being atrociously low. In some circumstances, this may have been a cause for frustration, but the undoubted of advantage of being really quite rubbish in all three phases is that the dressage very quickly becomes an irrelevance. The question is not "A cricket score or not?" but rather "how bad a cricket score?" The judge beeped immediately for me to start. Vito was spooking at everything. I weighed it up: One more lap of the arena in an effort to settle him, but risk annoying the already upset judge by being even later, or not? I went round on a second lap. The judge beeped again. Oh. Wrong call.
Next up, show jumping. as I came to the first, I discovered a disadvantage of not having been able to walk the course. I mean, sure, I knew where the first was, it was that brown oxen (Photo-Jo, picture?) in the middle of the ring. It always is. What I was less clear on, though, was how to get to it. I found myself on the wrong side of the fence in front of it. I wiggled, kicked, turned a bit, and then started jumping. He felt a bit excitable, and as I came to the exit to be let out, I noted with interest that a loose horse, partially entangled in what appeared to be most of the arena rope and a bit of lunge line, had jumped into the arena whilst we were mid-way through our round, and was in the process of careering about. Well, this achieved clarity on one level. I may have many strengths (though at the time of writing, nobody questioned was entirely sure what any of them were) but the power of observation is certainly not one of them.
Before we move on to the debacle that was the XC - some background for anyone fortunate enough to have missed out on the moderately narcissistic ramble of gloom that was my last report. At Gatcombe, I'd managed to scare myself at a double of corners. Corners for me seem to be an Achilles Heel (in fact, most of my riding is my Achilles Heel, but corners are currently Achilles Heel Plus.). I'd had a lesson on corners, I'd mocked up arena corners, but as I started the remedial corner-jumping, it became apparent that I'd really done some damage to my confidence at Gatcombe. I fell off, pulled him out, chased him, held him, and gently evaporated into near-total meltdown about the whole concept.
Mindful of the blow that my confidence had taken, I opted for a steady round. I anchored him too much perhaps to start with and he fought me over the first two. We got far too close to the second, but then things improved. It all looked fairly technical, but none of it looked big. He was a bit more cautious than normal - perhaps a reaction to me holding him, or perhaps his nerves were suffering too. Anyway, I kept my leg very firmly on, and we mootled about a bit and jumped over some things. Then we came to the penultimate combination; two hice on a turn. Somehow, we missed our stride. He helped me out. I sat very still and tried to keep balance and leg on for the second part, but we were wrong again. He helped me again. Drat. Drat. I didn't want this. Next up was....... A double of corners. I got my line for the first, looked up...... And he ran out. I smacked him, came again. As I landed I realised we had a problem. We were going far too fast. I didn't think I'd come in too fast, so I don't know whether my smack made him accelerate on landing, but there we were. If I checked now, I had to get it very right. If I got it wrong and didn't check enough, we'd come to the second corner on a half stride. I kicked. We put four strides in the five stride distance and shot out over the second corner. So we were home, but we'd picked up 20 penalties (and, given that we've done about ten Novices together, that's pretty underwhelming) and we'd fluked the corners when we did get through them.
A pic from Gatcombe (as none purchased from Goring!).
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/VivianePendleton/media/_0002832copy_zpse28d7944.jpg.html
Ever supportive, my husband offered to lunge Vito before my dressage. "Do you know how to do this?" I asked, doubtfully. "Not hard, is it?", he snorted, "I just pull him around a bit on the end of a rope." So, with the baby strapped onto his chest in the baby carrier, and Vito plodding along on the end of the lunge line, he went off to lunge whilst I got changed in the trailer. Anxiously, I tried to be far enough out of the trailer so I could keep an eye on the husband/horse/baby chaos that was unfolding, whilst being far enough in the trailer that my unsuspecting lorry park neighbours would not be subjected to the sight of my bare bottom as I hastily stipped off into my cream jods. It's less than straightforward to shout lunging instructions at a baby-wearing husband when one is semi naked in the back of a horse box. I think this lasted for abut two mins, then we went over to the DR.
"So", said my husband, after consulting with the steward. "We may have got your time wrong. You're in now." I said nothing. What could I say? Even if I'd had the faintest chance to warm up, I doubt it would have made any difference. Our DR tests this season have consisted of Vito resisting, tensing and wiggling, and our marks being atrociously low. In some circumstances, this may have been a cause for frustration, but the undoubted of advantage of being really quite rubbish in all three phases is that the dressage very quickly becomes an irrelevance. The question is not "A cricket score or not?" but rather "how bad a cricket score?" The judge beeped immediately for me to start. Vito was spooking at everything. I weighed it up: One more lap of the arena in an effort to settle him, but risk annoying the already upset judge by being even later, or not? I went round on a second lap. The judge beeped again. Oh. Wrong call.
Next up, show jumping. as I came to the first, I discovered a disadvantage of not having been able to walk the course. I mean, sure, I knew where the first was, it was that brown oxen (Photo-Jo, picture?) in the middle of the ring. It always is. What I was less clear on, though, was how to get to it. I found myself on the wrong side of the fence in front of it. I wiggled, kicked, turned a bit, and then started jumping. He felt a bit excitable, and as I came to the exit to be let out, I noted with interest that a loose horse, partially entangled in what appeared to be most of the arena rope and a bit of lunge line, had jumped into the arena whilst we were mid-way through our round, and was in the process of careering about. Well, this achieved clarity on one level. I may have many strengths (though at the time of writing, nobody questioned was entirely sure what any of them were) but the power of observation is certainly not one of them.
Before we move on to the debacle that was the XC - some background for anyone fortunate enough to have missed out on the moderately narcissistic ramble of gloom that was my last report. At Gatcombe, I'd managed to scare myself at a double of corners. Corners for me seem to be an Achilles Heel (in fact, most of my riding is my Achilles Heel, but corners are currently Achilles Heel Plus.). I'd had a lesson on corners, I'd mocked up arena corners, but as I started the remedial corner-jumping, it became apparent that I'd really done some damage to my confidence at Gatcombe. I fell off, pulled him out, chased him, held him, and gently evaporated into near-total meltdown about the whole concept.
Mindful of the blow that my confidence had taken, I opted for a steady round. I anchored him too much perhaps to start with and he fought me over the first two. We got far too close to the second, but then things improved. It all looked fairly technical, but none of it looked big. He was a bit more cautious than normal - perhaps a reaction to me holding him, or perhaps his nerves were suffering too. Anyway, I kept my leg very firmly on, and we mootled about a bit and jumped over some things. Then we came to the penultimate combination; two hice on a turn. Somehow, we missed our stride. He helped me out. I sat very still and tried to keep balance and leg on for the second part, but we were wrong again. He helped me again. Drat. Drat. I didn't want this. Next up was....... A double of corners. I got my line for the first, looked up...... And he ran out. I smacked him, came again. As I landed I realised we had a problem. We were going far too fast. I didn't think I'd come in too fast, so I don't know whether my smack made him accelerate on landing, but there we were. If I checked now, I had to get it very right. If I got it wrong and didn't check enough, we'd come to the second corner on a half stride. I kicked. We put four strides in the five stride distance and shot out over the second corner. So we were home, but we'd picked up 20 penalties (and, given that we've done about ten Novices together, that's pretty underwhelming) and we'd fluked the corners when we did get through them.
A pic from Gatcombe (as none purchased from Goring!).
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/VivianePendleton/media/_0002832copy_zpse28d7944.jpg.html
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