Baydale
Well-Known Member
My halo is polished, as again I have been practising what I preach and been showjumping. Off to Manor Farm, driving through rain that brought the traffic to a standstill on the A1; thankfully it had stopped when we got there.
We were a class too early but OH was happy to fill that gap with bacon butty-eating and coffee drinking (he's easily pleased), as we watched fence after fence fall. I couldn't work out why but it sounds like their new arena hadn't taken all the rain very well, and was riding very dead and heavy as a result.
HumungaHorse was on first in the 1.10m Amateur Champ class. He was feeling really good albeit that he was sinking into the arena surface more than most (the diet isn't working, and he still looks like a county level MW hunter
). The course was pretty long and technical, with three doubles and only one fence that wasn't on a related distance, but he kept a good rhythm, as good a canter as I can expect from him at the mo (he's still quite weak) and he gently
rolled three poles, all behind. It felt like he just lost the second half of his jump yet the first half was consistently good, so whilst there is still a lot to work on he was so much better than last week and I was pleased with him. There were no clears in that class so they had to have a four-faulter jump off.
On to Hector, who so desperately needs a run cross-country he has turned into a mad thing.
I'd entered the 1.20 Amateur class and thankfully there were 3 of us or it wouldn't have run (and I'd probably have been deposited on the ground by the over-exuberant Hector). We whizzed round warming up, sometimes sideways, sometimes forwards, with lots of v camp shakes of the head after each fence. We went in and had a bit of a moment when he over-jumped the first fence then gleefully took off, not ideal when it's a four-stride dogleg, so I pulled my right rein really hard and jumped it on an angle. The rest of the round was - and I never say this - foot perfect, although he did give some of them a scary amount of room and felt like he was trying really hard to get out of the surface. So I was the only clear round (of all three of us
) and have qualified for the final at Arena UK in December.
I really like these outings where your prize money covers your entry fees (for both horses). *Baydale tootles off to fill her diary with BSJA dates*
We were a class too early but OH was happy to fill that gap with bacon butty-eating and coffee drinking (he's easily pleased), as we watched fence after fence fall. I couldn't work out why but it sounds like their new arena hadn't taken all the rain very well, and was riding very dead and heavy as a result.
HumungaHorse was on first in the 1.10m Amateur Champ class. He was feeling really good albeit that he was sinking into the arena surface more than most (the diet isn't working, and he still looks like a county level MW hunter
On to Hector, who so desperately needs a run cross-country he has turned into a mad thing.
I really like these outings where your prize money covers your entry fees (for both horses). *Baydale tootles off to fill her diary with BSJA dates*
