kirstyhen
Well-Known Member
I can't remember if I have posted on here in a while, but after Our first Novice and subsequent blast round a BE100, the wheels had somewhat fallen off the Moot and her Jockette! We had the big E at Catton for AR and we retired at Buckminster after stop which caused her to get caught in the ground line and fall back.
She has since had her back checked and a saddle change as her old one had become FOUR sizes too small for her!! She has felt fabulous since, towed me round some XC schooling, so we entered Shelford for a nice, no pressure run...
... However they had beefed it up somewhat for the Regional Finals and I found myself wishing I was sat on my old Moot!
We had a lesson on Monday with Jeanette, which was blindly brilliant, real lightbulb moments for me. Moot likes to sit flat against my right leg and anticipates turning left far too much, so we spent a lot of time doing serpentines and kicking with my right leg. So with all that fresh in my mind I went to my Dressage and for once came out feeling very pleased with her test, although I never expect the judges to be quite as happy with her as I am, so I guessed mid-30s (which is still far better than the mid-40s we were getting last year!)
http://youtu.be/U-Lr08gKgAI
Had a 2 hour wait for show jumping, so walked the Xc. First question came at 4 & 5 a step to a palisade that you could angle both parts and go on a straight line inside a tree or ride round the outside of the tree on a curve. Then a Trakehner which didn't worry me too much as we've jumped it before, but since our ground line issue I'm wary of her becoming ditchy. 11, 12a & 12b where a palisade/brush then a long curve to a pair of brushes ridden at an angle on two strides, this worried me as our first XC issue was with a pair of angled brushes, so suddenly our no pressure easy run had me feeling worried! The rest of the course she has jumped before and I had no real worries as long as we got past 12!
Off to Show Jumping, in our lesson Mally pulled out one of her wonderful stops and Jeanette pointed out that I am almost waiting for her to decide what she wants to do and then correct it, so when shes not concentrating shes toddles into the fence, gets a surprise and stops. I realised that i am still riding the baby horse i had that would fight to get to a fence, instead of the schooled polite horse she has become that waits a bit more for me to have some input! i was busy having a fight that wasnt actually happening and my leg was sat having a snooze. so now i am really concentrating on riding forwards from the leg whilst riding for my stride. its a bit rough and ready at the moment, but definitely appears to work!!
I usually try to find out my Dressage score so I don't get a surprise on the way into the first fence, but no such luck this time, I heard a five and figured 35 which I was ok about. Rode a round I was super happy with and got a nice clear, Moot feels SO much better in her new saddle, so so happy with that investment. She is always an economical jumper, but she felt like she was really trying to leave the jumps up, especially when I dropped her in it a few times!
http://youtu.be/5gT57a8m1aw
As I left the arena, I was asked how I hadn't fallen off in shock when I heard my dressage score, so I figured it must have been much worse than I thought... Moot had only gone and got a bloody 28.5 to lead the dressage, with second place on 32.4!!! :shock: :shock: :shock:
Look at all those 7s and 8s!! I didn't know judges didn't have to use at least three 4s and two 5s in every test...
So now, my easy, no pressure run (remember eventing is fun!) suddenly became me really no wanting to go XC and ruin my perfect day! Moot has had 5too fast time penalties the last time we ran at Shelford, but I didn't want to try and be clever and slow down too much, especially as riding backwards is what we are using to stop doing! So I decided to just go and ride the dam course.
She warmed up fab, jumped a log on an angle a few times, with me remembering to kick and then off we trundled!
Well, what can I say but my horse is flicking awesome! Her ears never stopped being pricked and she was so keen to go! I slowed to trot for the drop to palisade as I needed to go straight as too much pulling around makes her brain switched off, but she never took her eyes off the questions. The Trakehner was perfect and she came back lovely for the angled hedges, at which point I remember to kick and she was ace. The rest of the course was perfect, and she flew the last with lots of smiles and pats from me.
If you listen to the commentator, even he sounds shocked at my dressage and clear show jumping!
http://youtu.be/wp6bz-DWBMU
However, I turns out, despite trotting and taking a few wider lines than I would normally, my big fat donkey is just too bloody quick! This time we got SEVEN too fast time penalties which dropped us down to 3rd but in my eyes, my pony won!
So pleased with her, she felt totally back on form, made every penny of the saddle worth it and still in total shock over our dressage score!! We will now stay at Be100 and enjoy ourselves, obviously win a few with our new found dressage diva-ness and make sure our wheels are firmly reattached, before we think about Novice again.
Today Moot has had a relaxing day, chillin'with her new buddy (who should NOT be in the field with her!!!) and impressing him with her heroic tales...
She has since had her back checked and a saddle change as her old one had become FOUR sizes too small for her!! She has felt fabulous since, towed me round some XC schooling, so we entered Shelford for a nice, no pressure run...
... However they had beefed it up somewhat for the Regional Finals and I found myself wishing I was sat on my old Moot!
We had a lesson on Monday with Jeanette, which was blindly brilliant, real lightbulb moments for me. Moot likes to sit flat against my right leg and anticipates turning left far too much, so we spent a lot of time doing serpentines and kicking with my right leg. So with all that fresh in my mind I went to my Dressage and for once came out feeling very pleased with her test, although I never expect the judges to be quite as happy with her as I am, so I guessed mid-30s (which is still far better than the mid-40s we were getting last year!)
http://youtu.be/U-Lr08gKgAI
Had a 2 hour wait for show jumping, so walked the Xc. First question came at 4 & 5 a step to a palisade that you could angle both parts and go on a straight line inside a tree or ride round the outside of the tree on a curve. Then a Trakehner which didn't worry me too much as we've jumped it before, but since our ground line issue I'm wary of her becoming ditchy. 11, 12a & 12b where a palisade/brush then a long curve to a pair of brushes ridden at an angle on two strides, this worried me as our first XC issue was with a pair of angled brushes, so suddenly our no pressure easy run had me feeling worried! The rest of the course she has jumped before and I had no real worries as long as we got past 12!
Off to Show Jumping, in our lesson Mally pulled out one of her wonderful stops and Jeanette pointed out that I am almost waiting for her to decide what she wants to do and then correct it, so when shes not concentrating shes toddles into the fence, gets a surprise and stops. I realised that i am still riding the baby horse i had that would fight to get to a fence, instead of the schooled polite horse she has become that waits a bit more for me to have some input! i was busy having a fight that wasnt actually happening and my leg was sat having a snooze. so now i am really concentrating on riding forwards from the leg whilst riding for my stride. its a bit rough and ready at the moment, but definitely appears to work!!
I usually try to find out my Dressage score so I don't get a surprise on the way into the first fence, but no such luck this time, I heard a five and figured 35 which I was ok about. Rode a round I was super happy with and got a nice clear, Moot feels SO much better in her new saddle, so so happy with that investment. She is always an economical jumper, but she felt like she was really trying to leave the jumps up, especially when I dropped her in it a few times!
http://youtu.be/5gT57a8m1aw
As I left the arena, I was asked how I hadn't fallen off in shock when I heard my dressage score, so I figured it must have been much worse than I thought... Moot had only gone and got a bloody 28.5 to lead the dressage, with second place on 32.4!!! :shock: :shock: :shock:
Look at all those 7s and 8s!! I didn't know judges didn't have to use at least three 4s and two 5s in every test...
So now, my easy, no pressure run (remember eventing is fun!) suddenly became me really no wanting to go XC and ruin my perfect day! Moot has had 5too fast time penalties the last time we ran at Shelford, but I didn't want to try and be clever and slow down too much, especially as riding backwards is what we are using to stop doing! So I decided to just go and ride the dam course.
She warmed up fab, jumped a log on an angle a few times, with me remembering to kick and then off we trundled!
Well, what can I say but my horse is flicking awesome! Her ears never stopped being pricked and she was so keen to go! I slowed to trot for the drop to palisade as I needed to go straight as too much pulling around makes her brain switched off, but she never took her eyes off the questions. The Trakehner was perfect and she came back lovely for the angled hedges, at which point I remember to kick and she was ace. The rest of the course was perfect, and she flew the last with lots of smiles and pats from me.
If you listen to the commentator, even he sounds shocked at my dressage and clear show jumping!
http://youtu.be/wp6bz-DWBMU
However, I turns out, despite trotting and taking a few wider lines than I would normally, my big fat donkey is just too bloody quick! This time we got SEVEN too fast time penalties
which dropped us down to 3rd but in my eyes, my pony won! So pleased with her, she felt totally back on form, made every penny of the saddle worth it and still in total shock over our dressage score!! We will now stay at Be100 and enjoy ourselves, obviously win a few with our new found dressage diva-ness
and make sure our wheels are firmly reattached, before we think about Novice again.Today Moot has had a relaxing day, chillin'with her new buddy (who should NOT be in the field with her!!!) and impressing him with her heroic tales...
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