lex2501
Well-Known Member
Quick warning in advance - this is going to be ludicrously long, and full of photos so feel free to click away now 
All photos were taken by my Dad, or by the fantastic "Spidge Event Photography" who have provided great customer service and given me full permission to post so please don't button press 
Day One - Saturday Dressage
The week leading up to SoE didn't go quite to plan with the ever-helpful Murphy slicing his eyelid in the lorry somehow 2 days before. As we couldn't put any anaesthetic in him so close to the event, the vet said we could try twitching him to see if he would allow her to have a good look at it but wasn't too hopeful of how much we could do without doping him. Murphy however was an absolute poppet and allowed her to put 2 staples in, and spray it with Alu-spray
what a good boy
Mr Stapleface:
We had a very sociable dressage time of 12.12 on the saturday so I had plenty of time to get the boy sparkling
Huge thanks to all those of you who provided me with white tail tips - the results speak for themselves in the photos 
I got down to the show ground with plenty of time to walk the xc. I had fully intended to take course photos for Sarah_Jane but I ended up meeting a really lovely lady who was also course walking and we were so engrossed in chatting away that I totally forgot! The course was pretty much as expected - much more technical than a Novice, with one or two beefier fences which made it feel like a step up. The first water came very early at fence 3 with a house on a curving 4/5 strides to a log drop into the water, a step out with 2 short strides to a large-ish skinny log. There were a few more tricky combinations including a corner combination and a spooky hollow. The one combination that left me scratching my head a little was a bank with a bounce log drop with 2/3 strides to a VERY angled house which was numbered separately so you could circle. I decided I would probably go straight as Murphy is so honest, but could see it causing the odd problem.
Dressage time loomed so I donned my top hat and tails and climbed aboard the grey boy. The warm up is split between two large schools with good surfaces so we headed in and I started him off long and low to relax him and get him swinging along nicely
He seemed really focused and relaxed so starting gradually picking him up into more of a test frame whilst trying to maintain the swing and forwardness. Here are some snaps of the warm up:
We headed in which meant a change from lovely springy rubber surface to firm grass and unfortunately I lost some of the cadence from his paces. However, I was absolutely thrilled with him - he tried his heart out and was totally and utterly with me. There was no spooking at flowers or white boards, and he kept a lid on his tension very nicely - what a good boy No real mistakes through the test, but the walk was typically poor, and our rein back crooked, although very obedient. The quarters crept in slightly in the canter work so I need to keep an eye on that, but all in all I was very very pleased! A safe test but nothing too sparkly - Good boy Murphy 
Our score was 57.1 (equivalent to 38 in standard BE scoring) which although not great, could have been much worse and there is so much room for improvement. It left us in 34th overnight of the 75 entries so not bad at all for our first crack!!
The original plan had been to stable overnight before our jumping phases on the sunday. However poor Jenny Nolan was inundated with stabling requests which outnumbered the stables on site, so some, including me, were offered stabling at Lingfield racecourse 30minutes away. I decided to just head home instead and Jenny was fantastic and refunded my fee - top service
Home in time for a chinese and X Factor followed by a very early night .....
All photos were taken by my Dad, or by the fantastic "Spidge Event Photography" who have provided great customer service and given me full permission to post so please don't button press Day One - Saturday Dressage
The week leading up to SoE didn't go quite to plan with the ever-helpful Murphy slicing his eyelid in the lorry somehow 2 days before. As we couldn't put any anaesthetic in him so close to the event, the vet said we could try twitching him to see if he would allow her to have a good look at it but wasn't too hopeful of how much we could do without doping him. Murphy however was an absolute poppet and allowed her to put 2 staples in, and spray it with Alu-spray
what a good boy Mr Stapleface:
We had a very sociable dressage time of 12.12 on the saturday so I had plenty of time to get the boy sparkling
Huge thanks to all those of you who provided me with white tail tips - the results speak for themselves in the photos I got down to the show ground with plenty of time to walk the xc. I had fully intended to take course photos for Sarah_Jane but I ended up meeting a really lovely lady who was also course walking and we were so engrossed in chatting away that I totally forgot! The course was pretty much as expected - much more technical than a Novice, with one or two beefier fences which made it feel like a step up. The first water came very early at fence 3 with a house on a curving 4/5 strides to a log drop into the water, a step out with 2 short strides to a large-ish skinny log. There were a few more tricky combinations including a corner combination and a spooky hollow. The one combination that left me scratching my head a little was a bank with a bounce log drop with 2/3 strides to a VERY angled house which was numbered separately so you could circle. I decided I would probably go straight as Murphy is so honest, but could see it causing the odd problem.Dressage time loomed so I donned my top hat and tails and climbed aboard the grey boy. The warm up is split between two large schools with good surfaces so we headed in and I started him off long and low to relax him and get him swinging along nicely
He seemed really focused and relaxed so starting gradually picking him up into more of a test frame whilst trying to maintain the swing and forwardness. Here are some snaps of the warm up:
We headed in which meant a change from lovely springy rubber surface to firm grass and unfortunately I lost some of the cadence from his paces. However, I was absolutely thrilled with him - he tried his heart out and was totally and utterly with me. There was no spooking at flowers or white boards, and he kept a lid on his tension very nicely - what a good boy
No real mistakes through the test, but the walk was typically poor, and our rein back crooked, although very obedient. The quarters crept in slightly in the canter work so I need to keep an eye on that, but all in all I was very very pleased! A safe test but nothing too sparkly - Good boy Murphy
Our score was 57.1 (equivalent to 38 in standard BE scoring) which although not great, could have been much worse and there is so much room for improvement. It left us in 34th overnight of the 75 entries so not bad at all for our first crack!!
The original plan had been to stable overnight before our jumping phases on the sunday. However poor Jenny Nolan was inundated with stabling requests which outnumbered the stables on site, so some, including me, were offered stabling at Lingfield racecourse 30minutes away. I decided to just head home instead and Jenny was fantastic and refunded my fee - top service
Home in time for a chinese and X Factor followed by a very early night
.....
The lovely steward notched his noseband up and hole, and tightened his kirb chain for me in anticipation of a rather strong round .... and Murphy didn't disappoint at all, my goodness I had one very keen chap 
