RachelFerd
Well-Known Member
With the absence of a weekend thread - I've decided to come clean about my slightly wild plan for eventing this Autumn in this season which has not run to plan A/B/C at all - not my horse's fault, just the weather and general chaos of the event calendar. Strap in, this might be quite long.
What we were hoping to do was to start the season with a few novices, have two very quiet intermediate runs at the most straightforward possible venues (Aston and Upton) and then run in the British Novice champs at Gatcombe, which are run at Intermediate level (but are reasonably straightforward for intermediate - albeit with plenty of terrain) before then closing out the season with some more confidence giving runs at novice and 2*.
Well, Gatcombe we only got as far as jumping a (very nice) SJ round in a quagmire before the event was called off. So the goal was not completed and we didn't really know what to do with the rest of the year. I then got an email from BEDE events/Osberton notifying me that I was qualified for a new restricted intermediate three day event running at Osberton at the end of September - thanks to having 2 MERs at intermediate and having not ridden at 3* this year (or indeed, ever).
Now this sounded very interesting - and I collared one of our instructors when I spotted him at a different event and asked him if I was completely silly to enter this with only the two intermediate runs in both mine and the horse's record - and he said it wasn't too silly... but I still felt a bit like I don't want to enter something with the absolute minimum of MERs in place to do so - so operation get another intermediate run commenced!
I had an entry for the open novice at Frenchfield this weekend originally, which would have been a lovely fun run around a straightforward track - and a very simple trip up the M6. Instead, I withdrew from that and got a late entry to Burnham Market, a mere 190 miles away on the other side of the country with the worst non-motorway drive all the way there
I planned to stable overnight on the Saturday and compete on the Sunday and my original plan would have been to head up mid afternoon on Saturday, just use the stabling as a quick pit-stop and hope that my class was going to be on early on Sunday. Well... that was not how it worked out. Firstly I had the mega stress of my lorry giving up on me the week before last and needing a load of sensors and stuff replaced - so there was the tension of not knowing whether or not that was going to be sorted on time. And then, once the lorry issue was fixed (and left my wallet much lighter) I was then watching soaring temperatures on the weather apps and questioning whether I should even be attempting this trip or not.
My times came out and we were on last of the day on Sunday - typically inconvenient. So, we ended up making a full weekend of it - we set off 6.30am on Saturday to try and avoid travelling in the worst of the midday heat. It was all going well until I realised about an hour in that I'd left my dressage saddlecloth in the washing machine at home and that we'd need to try and find a saddlery en route as I wasn't expecting there to be a full tack shop stand at BM (there wasn't)... so managed to get the other half googling tack shops en route and diverted via Retford Saddlery which had exactly the right Nuumed pad I wanted - and I stocked up on electrolytes and cooling mashes for the horse. The trip was all going very well until traffic hit around Kings Lynn - people were flocking to the Norfolk coast with the heatwave and we were in stationary traffic for nearly an hour in 30 degree heat and no shade. Fortunately my lorry is well ventilated, and I'd invested in a couple of these little portable fans which were incredibly useful. My other half popped into the back and sploshed some water over the horse, set the fans on to max power, and we seemed to keep him cool really effectively. Ultimately he arrived at our overnight location at about 1pm looking as fresh as a daisy... phew.
The heat was unbearable in Norfolk compared to Manchester - but fortunately there was a beer garden at a lovely pub only a mile's walk away... came back and did some gentle schooling in the field to give him a leg stretch before going back to said pub to get dinner. By the time we'd got back it was still incredibly hot and the lorry felt way too airless to be able to sleep in - until the fans came back into action to rescue us and made sleeping much more possible!
Our dressage wasn't until 3pm, so fans were recharged again in the morning and we loaded up for the next 10 miles to the coast to Burnham in the peak of the midday heat - fans on again, horse arrived without having turned a hair. I walked the course and tried very hard not to contemplate the size of the fences and ignore that they were wider than I am tall (and I'm quite tall...).
Dressage was uneventful - it isn't our strongest phase and I know that I need to do some proper winter homework here. But we managed a 37.3 which isn't too bad - and I was happy that his simple changes scored 7s for the first time. We were both a hot and sweaty mess after the DR - I do not recommend the experience of trying to use an airless portaloo when your clothes are so sweaty that you can't manage to even pull your trousers back up
Before the SJ started there was a a storm on the horizon which brought some lovely cool wind with it - which I was sooo thankful about! The ground in the SJ was firm, which is not our preference, and the warm-up was particularly so (and isn't the nicest space for warming up in either) - the warm-up was not great for us - I totally cocked up a stride to a big parallel and ended up causing him to stop. So then had to override a few fences to get him going again, as he does err on the side of cautious at times, and we weren't loving the line into the spread being a downhill turn on firm ground. Nonetheless, had a few more positive jumps and then went in, and he was much, much better in the ring. We kept a good flow all the way around, but had an unlucky rub at the 7th where I'd possible let him get a touch too forward. And he also had a tap coming out of the treble combination was sadly came down too - *but* it was a good flowing round and he felt confident, which was a relief after a poor warm-up. And we know that he's so much better when the ground is good/soft.
On to the XC - and this was probably the stiffer test XC than Aston or Upton was, so I wasn't super confident. And the sun came back out, so it was pretty warm again! It wasn't a brilliantly flowing round all the way, but he was just so incredibly genuine and honest for me. I rode a terrible line at 9ABC, which was a spread, one stride to a large log step down and then a curving line left to a brush corner, with the option of going one side or the other of a decorative rail to get to it. I tried to go the longer route around the outside of the rail, but rode such a bad line that I essentially rode an S bend into the brush corner and he jumped it from little more than a trot. He got extremely big pats for that!! There was also a tricky combination at the penultimate fence - a bank up, two strides to a big log drop down and then two strides to a brush panel on a fairly acute angle. He was just mega clever, popping in an extra little stride on top of the bank and then let me ride a curving three to the brush panel - we had to think on our feet there as the two stride would have come up far too long having shuffled on the top. He was good with both waters and he made all of the big spreads feel pretty casual using his usual carefully judged minimum effort technique!
We came home with 9 time penalties, and climbed a couple of places into 8th - albeit in a very small section. Most importantly, it was another confidence building round and we've got that tick in the box to progress to Osberton having jumped a more testing intermediate track and coped with the challenge.
So we're now full steam ahead to get some more fitness work in to top-up his fitness ready for a three day track and work on a few bits and bobs - dressage test, rideability when turning left etc. etc. for Osberton. I might pop some updates on this thread about the fitness work in case anyone is interested.
And then, funnily enough, I got a notification on my phone saying that 7 years ago today I rode this horse in the BE100 at Burnham Market and did a much worse dressage and had two stops on the XC - so that's a bit of evidence of slowly slowly making progress with a horse that wasn't naturally brave across country!
What we were hoping to do was to start the season with a few novices, have two very quiet intermediate runs at the most straightforward possible venues (Aston and Upton) and then run in the British Novice champs at Gatcombe, which are run at Intermediate level (but are reasonably straightforward for intermediate - albeit with plenty of terrain) before then closing out the season with some more confidence giving runs at novice and 2*.
Well, Gatcombe we only got as far as jumping a (very nice) SJ round in a quagmire before the event was called off. So the goal was not completed and we didn't really know what to do with the rest of the year. I then got an email from BEDE events/Osberton notifying me that I was qualified for a new restricted intermediate three day event running at Osberton at the end of September - thanks to having 2 MERs at intermediate and having not ridden at 3* this year (or indeed, ever).
Now this sounded very interesting - and I collared one of our instructors when I spotted him at a different event and asked him if I was completely silly to enter this with only the two intermediate runs in both mine and the horse's record - and he said it wasn't too silly... but I still felt a bit like I don't want to enter something with the absolute minimum of MERs in place to do so - so operation get another intermediate run commenced!
I had an entry for the open novice at Frenchfield this weekend originally, which would have been a lovely fun run around a straightforward track - and a very simple trip up the M6. Instead, I withdrew from that and got a late entry to Burnham Market, a mere 190 miles away on the other side of the country with the worst non-motorway drive all the way there
I planned to stable overnight on the Saturday and compete on the Sunday and my original plan would have been to head up mid afternoon on Saturday, just use the stabling as a quick pit-stop and hope that my class was going to be on early on Sunday. Well... that was not how it worked out. Firstly I had the mega stress of my lorry giving up on me the week before last and needing a load of sensors and stuff replaced - so there was the tension of not knowing whether or not that was going to be sorted on time. And then, once the lorry issue was fixed (and left my wallet much lighter) I was then watching soaring temperatures on the weather apps and questioning whether I should even be attempting this trip or not.My times came out and we were on last of the day on Sunday - typically inconvenient. So, we ended up making a full weekend of it - we set off 6.30am on Saturday to try and avoid travelling in the worst of the midday heat. It was all going well until I realised about an hour in that I'd left my dressage saddlecloth in the washing machine at home and that we'd need to try and find a saddlery en route as I wasn't expecting there to be a full tack shop stand at BM (there wasn't)... so managed to get the other half googling tack shops en route and diverted via Retford Saddlery which had exactly the right Nuumed pad I wanted - and I stocked up on electrolytes and cooling mashes for the horse. The trip was all going very well until traffic hit around Kings Lynn - people were flocking to the Norfolk coast with the heatwave and we were in stationary traffic for nearly an hour in 30 degree heat and no shade. Fortunately my lorry is well ventilated, and I'd invested in a couple of these little portable fans which were incredibly useful. My other half popped into the back and sploshed some water over the horse, set the fans on to max power, and we seemed to keep him cool really effectively. Ultimately he arrived at our overnight location at about 1pm looking as fresh as a daisy... phew.
The heat was unbearable in Norfolk compared to Manchester - but fortunately there was a beer garden at a lovely pub only a mile's walk away...
came back and did some gentle schooling in the field to give him a leg stretch before going back to said pub to get dinner. By the time we'd got back it was still incredibly hot and the lorry felt way too airless to be able to sleep in - until the fans came back into action to rescue us and made sleeping much more possible! Our dressage wasn't until 3pm, so fans were recharged again in the morning and we loaded up for the next 10 miles to the coast to Burnham in the peak of the midday heat - fans on again, horse arrived without having turned a hair. I walked the course and tried very hard not to contemplate the size of the fences and ignore that they were wider than I am tall (and I'm quite tall...).
Dressage was uneventful - it isn't our strongest phase and I know that I need to do some proper winter homework here. But we managed a 37.3 which isn't too bad - and I was happy that his simple changes scored 7s for the first time. We were both a hot and sweaty mess after the DR - I do not recommend the experience of trying to use an airless portaloo when your clothes are so sweaty that you can't manage to even pull your trousers back up
Before the SJ started there was a a storm on the horizon which brought some lovely cool wind with it - which I was sooo thankful about! The ground in the SJ was firm, which is not our preference, and the warm-up was particularly so (and isn't the nicest space for warming up in either) - the warm-up was not great for us - I totally cocked up a stride to a big parallel and ended up causing him to stop. So then had to override a few fences to get him going again, as he does err on the side of cautious at times, and we weren't loving the line into the spread being a downhill turn on firm ground. Nonetheless, had a few more positive jumps and then went in, and he was much, much better in the ring. We kept a good flow all the way around, but had an unlucky rub at the 7th where I'd possible let him get a touch too forward. And he also had a tap coming out of the treble combination was sadly came down too - *but* it was a good flowing round and he felt confident, which was a relief after a poor warm-up. And we know that he's so much better when the ground is good/soft.
On to the XC - and this was probably the stiffer test XC than Aston or Upton was, so I wasn't super confident. And the sun came back out, so it was pretty warm again! It wasn't a brilliantly flowing round all the way, but he was just so incredibly genuine and honest for me. I rode a terrible line at 9ABC, which was a spread, one stride to a large log step down and then a curving line left to a brush corner, with the option of going one side or the other of a decorative rail to get to it. I tried to go the longer route around the outside of the rail, but rode such a bad line that I essentially rode an S bend into the brush corner and he jumped it from little more than a trot. He got extremely big pats for that!! There was also a tricky combination at the penultimate fence - a bank up, two strides to a big log drop down and then two strides to a brush panel on a fairly acute angle. He was just mega clever, popping in an extra little stride on top of the bank and then let me ride a curving three to the brush panel - we had to think on our feet there as the two stride would have come up far too long having shuffled on the top. He was good with both waters and he made all of the big spreads feel pretty casual using his usual carefully judged minimum effort technique!
We came home with 9 time penalties, and climbed a couple of places into 8th - albeit in a very small section. Most importantly, it was another confidence building round and we've got that tick in the box to progress to Osberton having jumped a more testing intermediate track and coped with the challenge.
So we're now full steam ahead to get some more fitness work in to top-up his fitness ready for a three day track and work on a few bits and bobs - dressage test, rideability when turning left etc. etc. for Osberton. I might pop some updates on this thread about the fitness work in case anyone is interested.
And then, funnily enough, I got a notification on my phone saying that 7 years ago today I rode this horse in the BE100 at Burnham Market and did a much worse dressage and had two stops on the XC - so that's a bit of evidence of slowly slowly making progress with a horse that wasn't naturally brave across country!
)
blinking horses 
) but I hope its speedy and smooth healing so he can be out and about without losing much fitness 
fortunately new BE rules do mean I'll get a refund on a vet cert, and maybe there's something later in October we can reschedule to?!
