henryhorn
Well-Known Member
Well the day was a mixture to be honest, started well, he let her on and she went off to work him in. He humped his back a bit but then decided as they walked through the gateway into the actual dressage arena field it was all far too exciting and broncked.. She stuck on around 12 bucks and leaps but then after a massive rear ended up leaning forwards and the next buck sent her on his neck. The sensible option at that point was to fall off..he is a sod, he is so damned clever at it, he tucks his nose in his chest and no amount of yanking gets it up, so we may invest in some daisy reins so he can't get his head down there next time. Anyway he ran amock round the field for 15 mins, managed to lose the neck strap etc and she had ten mins left to get on and work in. Went over to the arena and to her horror saw they were not doing prelim 15 but PC HT 2005.. Apparently that's the test for next week at the same place's ODE...
The stewards were great and quickly found a test, and I wandered over to the judge to explain and ask if I could call it or call it HC if not allowed.
The judge turned out to be our next door neighbour who said of course, so off we went to have a quick scan of the test then me read it. So poor C did a totally new test cold so to speak..
It looked ok apart from the final halt which is off a half circle to X then halt at G, so we were pleased to score 38..
The sj was only2' 3" but very scary looking fillers and a treble/triple(I can never remember which is which but three in a row!) with a nasty filler in the middle of a wall thing.
He jumped beautifully, in a lovely rhythm, and just tried to stop at the aforementioned filler, but C made him do it from a standstill so he got 4 faults when he knocked it down.
Off to the Xc and he went steady, but apart from looking at one or two did great until the water. He stopped dead, advanced a few steps, repeated that a few times etc, but didn't actually step backwards at any point, so a bit peeving to get 80- penalties for something that would be allowed in a BE event...
Half way round he suddenly felt he knew what was expected and he finished really nicely within the time.
C was delighted, as he really did perform better than expected, especially when you remember he has never actually jumped more than a couple of logs and ditches in the woods out hacking! Last time he did combined training he got eliminated SJ, but really that was our fault, he hadn't seen any jumps and the course was 2' 6" and spooky.
So another ODE at the same place next week, tomorrow he is off to our village show which has a ferris wheel, and fairground etc, he needs to be less worried about his surroundings and if he is tired, so what, the bugger may decide not to explode!
There is a gallery pic of a XC fence part way round the course when he got going, with any luck he will be doing Intro at Bath and West later this year... (if C can stay on him, he now has a total of nine times he's got four different people off...including some stickable riders..
)
The stewards were great and quickly found a test, and I wandered over to the judge to explain and ask if I could call it or call it HC if not allowed.
The judge turned out to be our next door neighbour who said of course, so off we went to have a quick scan of the test then me read it. So poor C did a totally new test cold so to speak..
It looked ok apart from the final halt which is off a half circle to X then halt at G, so we were pleased to score 38..
The sj was only2' 3" but very scary looking fillers and a treble/triple(I can never remember which is which but three in a row!) with a nasty filler in the middle of a wall thing.
He jumped beautifully, in a lovely rhythm, and just tried to stop at the aforementioned filler, but C made him do it from a standstill so he got 4 faults when he knocked it down.
Off to the Xc and he went steady, but apart from looking at one or two did great until the water. He stopped dead, advanced a few steps, repeated that a few times etc, but didn't actually step backwards at any point, so a bit peeving to get 80- penalties for something that would be allowed in a BE event...
Half way round he suddenly felt he knew what was expected and he finished really nicely within the time.
C was delighted, as he really did perform better than expected, especially when you remember he has never actually jumped more than a couple of logs and ditches in the woods out hacking! Last time he did combined training he got eliminated SJ, but really that was our fault, he hadn't seen any jumps and the course was 2' 6" and spooky.
So another ODE at the same place next week, tomorrow he is off to our village show which has a ferris wheel, and fairground etc, he needs to be less worried about his surroundings and if he is tired, so what, the bugger may decide not to explode!
There is a gallery pic of a XC fence part way round the course when he got going, with any luck he will be doing Intro at Bath and West later this year... (if C can stay on him, he now has a total of nine times he's got four different people off...including some stickable riders..
