Arniebear
Well-Known Member
So after our rather good run (for us) at our first BE at Gt Witch (33 dr, 1 down sj, clear xc with some time faults) i was looking forward to this weekend!
Little downham is 20 mins away from home, we train up there loads and i have been volunteering there since i was 13! We had been blessed (??) or cursed! with early times! 8:06 dressage, 8:50 sj and 9:40 xc due to this funnily enough i had no volunteers for help!
Bear lives out so i plaited and studded him the night before just leaving the rolling of the plaits to the morning, somehow i still managed to leave home late and in panic mode always a good start to the day i feel :/
Arrived, legged it over to grab numbers and begin studding/tacking up in full flight of panic mode now due to very unhelpful stud holes; a very nice lady next door had to give me a helping hand to get one of my travel studs out! Finally got on board and began warming up, he was going really nicely, comments from Gt Witch were needs to be more in front of the leg and forward so my aim was to ride him like i do at home and quit playing it safe, this was working until he had a melt down at god knows what just as the horse before was half way through her test, got him over his little paddy and in we went. I thought the test was ok, some of his bending wasnt great but i had no time to dwell on it - what will be will be! ended up scoring 32.3 so couldnt have been that bad eh?!
Back to the box in double time to untack prey he stayed tied up while i ran over to walk sj, once again in panic mode i managed to arrive with said tacked up horse with 2 to go before me in the jumping, sj is my worst phase (i stress alot about it!) so nothing like a quick jump and then in is there! The course was nice a figure of 8 with a double as the last, 1-2 we jumped nice, 3 we took down although not to sure why as approach was ok! 4-5 again jumped nicely and then 6 happened! came in with a really nice forward canter hit the take off spot nicely and bear decided he would chip a short in que me above the saddle muttering under my breath as we land to please not repeat that! somehow we left it up! 7-8 nicely and a bit close to the first of the double but once again mr nifty with his feet got them out of the way to keep them up - so just 4 to add from sj! not going too hurrendously so far!
The xc course looked ok, 3 fences i was a little dubious about - 4 a bank, we sometimes have melt down at getting off banks! 11 a step up to a log and 13 a fence before water (have previously always had a stop at fences before water) My plan was to kick on on top of the bank to ensure we got down! get up the step and kick on for the log, didnt exactly have a plan for the fence before the water thou! i wanted to open him up on the big gallopy stretches and let him run..... as per the title things dont always go to plan!
Out the start box we went, over 1 and a big wobble left inbetween 1 and 2 - this should have made me realise we were in for trouble but he cleared 2 and headed to 3 a log up a slight slope, the little darling decided he would have that moment of 'im going to take off.... front feet nearly off the floor.... ooooo no actually i'll slam my breaks on and send mummy up my neck!' Unimpressed i spun him round growled smacked his litle bottom and represented, over he popped and onto 4 the bank, up and off no issues there was a slight space to open up to 5 which could be taken off a more forward stride so i tried but once again the nappy little monster in bear reared his ugly head and he slammed the anchors on at 5 (the trailer park was to the right just behind us) extremely unimpressed with his napping behaviour i shouted some more represented and took no prisoners he was going to go round this xc course END OF!
6 a big table he wobbled into still in nappy mode so another slap on the shoulder insured no more stops here, onto 7 a double of a ski jump to a skinny, completely overshot the a element huge ugly usless riding from me saw us wibble to the b element and me pray we took off, we did! nice big space to open him up and onto 8 and 9 2 skinny logs on undulated ground, he actually jumped these nicely! another space to open him up and onto 10 a chair flew that and onto the step up to the log at 11, didnt quite get the stride i was after so slipped the reins and kicked on over the log. Down to 12 a ditch to a half roll top combination - i screwed up here due to him backing off earlier on course i was still riding like i stole it meaning a huge jump over the ditch and a complete fail to gather my knitting so i pulled him off the b element and represented - had we have gone for it i doubt we would have made it over intact anyway! heyho never mind im only human and will learn from my mistakes! onto 13 the fence before the water he popped this nicely followed by the corner at 14, 2nd water with 2 steps up at 15 and the last - the iconic events photo frame.... we were home and in 1 piece sort of!!
It wasnt the xc run i was expecting, i wasnt by any means expecting to fly round but i saw no real fences that would cause us carnage and the 3 i was worried about he made mincemeat of - just typical! I was rather annoyed the napping behaviour re-emerged we had had 3-4 good runs with no napping whatsoever. The 3rd stop/run out was completely me so i dont blame him for that at all but the previous 2 were all him being a **** there was simply no need for them, he has jumped those 2 specific fences countless times before and tbh he wasnt even looking at them. I can only prey it was because he felt more comfortable at LD due to the amount of times we have trained there.
I guess i will find out on my next run if he wants to play the nappy monster still, i really hope he doesnt as once he got into the swing of it yesterday he was good!
So sadly we racked up a cracking score of 117 to come last - but it was a learning curve hopefully he learnt if he naps he doesnt get away with it and still has to go and that actually it was fun in the end! On a positive note the dressage is getting there and the sj is improving too! I can also conlude that going eventing alone and leaving home late is a very stressful thing to do..... note more organisation is deffo needed on my part!
I was a little worried about entering him for 3 events with only 1 weekend off eventing inbetween but now im thinking its the right thing to do hopefully a few events in quick succession will rid us of the napping monster once and for all - next up aston on the 15th and then keysoe on the 30th depending on how these go depends on what we do next!
Apologies as once again no pics - cant understand why nobody wanted to get up in time for my dressage?! and i cant decide if i want to remember yesterday with pros photos just yet!
Thanks for reading my ramblings
Little downham is 20 mins away from home, we train up there loads and i have been volunteering there since i was 13! We had been blessed (??) or cursed! with early times! 8:06 dressage, 8:50 sj and 9:40 xc due to this funnily enough i had no volunteers for help!
Bear lives out so i plaited and studded him the night before just leaving the rolling of the plaits to the morning, somehow i still managed to leave home late and in panic mode always a good start to the day i feel :/Arrived, legged it over to grab numbers and begin studding/tacking up in full flight of panic mode now due to very unhelpful stud holes; a very nice lady next door had to give me a helping hand to get one of my travel studs out! Finally got on board and began warming up, he was going really nicely, comments from Gt Witch were needs to be more in front of the leg and forward so my aim was to ride him like i do at home and quit playing it safe, this was working until he had a melt down at god knows what just as the horse before was half way through her test, got him over his little paddy and in we went. I thought the test was ok, some of his bending wasnt great but i had no time to dwell on it - what will be will be! ended up scoring 32.3 so couldnt have been that bad eh?!
Back to the box in double time to untack prey he stayed tied up while i ran over to walk sj, once again in panic mode i managed to arrive with said tacked up horse with 2 to go before me in the jumping, sj is my worst phase (i stress alot about it!) so nothing like a quick jump and then in is there! The course was nice a figure of 8 with a double as the last, 1-2 we jumped nice, 3 we took down although not to sure why as approach was ok! 4-5 again jumped nicely and then 6 happened! came in with a really nice forward canter hit the take off spot nicely and bear decided he would chip a short in que me above the saddle muttering under my breath as we land to please not repeat that! somehow we left it up! 7-8 nicely and a bit close to the first of the double but once again mr nifty with his feet got them out of the way to keep them up - so just 4 to add from sj!
not going too hurrendously so far!The xc course looked ok, 3 fences i was a little dubious about - 4 a bank, we sometimes have melt down at getting off banks! 11 a step up to a log and 13 a fence before water (have previously always had a stop at fences before water) My plan was to kick on on top of the bank to ensure we got down! get up the step and kick on for the log, didnt exactly have a plan for the fence before the water thou! i wanted to open him up on the big gallopy stretches and let him run..... as per the title things dont always go to plan!
Out the start box we went, over 1 and a big wobble left inbetween 1 and 2 - this should have made me realise we were in for trouble but he cleared 2 and headed to 3 a log up a slight slope, the little darling decided he would have that moment of 'im going to take off.... front feet nearly off the floor.... ooooo no actually i'll slam my breaks on and send mummy up my neck!' Unimpressed i spun him round growled smacked his litle bottom and represented, over he popped and onto 4 the bank, up and off no issues there was a slight space to open up to 5 which could be taken off a more forward stride so i tried but once again the nappy little monster in bear reared his ugly head and he slammed the anchors on at 5 (the trailer park was to the right just behind us) extremely unimpressed with his napping behaviour i shouted some more represented and took no prisoners he was going to go round this xc course END OF!
6 a big table he wobbled into still in nappy mode so another slap on the shoulder insured no more stops here, onto 7 a double of a ski jump to a skinny, completely overshot the a element huge ugly usless riding from me saw us wibble to the b element and me pray we took off, we did! nice big space to open him up and onto 8 and 9 2 skinny logs on undulated ground, he actually jumped these nicely! another space to open him up and onto 10 a chair flew that and onto the step up to the log at 11, didnt quite get the stride i was after so slipped the reins and kicked on over the log. Down to 12 a ditch to a half roll top combination - i screwed up here
due to him backing off earlier on course i was still riding like i stole it meaning a huge jump over the ditch and a complete fail to gather my knitting so i pulled him off the b element and represented - had we have gone for it i doubt we would have made it over intact anyway! heyho never mind im only human and will learn from my mistakes! onto 13 the fence before the water he popped this nicely followed by the corner at 14, 2nd water with 2 steps up at 15 and the last - the iconic events photo frame.... we were home and in 1 piece sort of!!It wasnt the xc run i was expecting, i wasnt by any means expecting to fly round but i saw no real fences that would cause us carnage and the 3 i was worried about he made mincemeat of - just typical! I was rather annoyed the napping behaviour re-emerged we had had 3-4 good runs with no napping whatsoever. The 3rd stop/run out was completely me so i dont blame him for that at all but the previous 2 were all him being a **** there was simply no need for them, he has jumped those 2 specific fences countless times before and tbh he wasnt even looking at them. I can only prey it was because he felt more comfortable at LD due to the amount of times we have trained there.
I guess i will find out on my next run if he wants to play the nappy monster still, i really hope he doesnt as once he got into the swing of it yesterday he was good!
So sadly we racked up a cracking score of 117 to come last - but it was a learning curve hopefully he learnt if he naps he doesnt get away with it and still has to go and that actually it was fun in the end! On a positive note the dressage is getting there and the sj is improving too! I can also conlude that going eventing alone and leaving home late is a very stressful thing to do..... note more organisation is deffo needed on my part!
I was a little worried about entering him for 3 events with only 1 weekend off eventing inbetween but now im thinking its the right thing to do hopefully a few events in quick succession will rid us of the napping monster once and for all - next up aston on the 15th and then keysoe on the 30th depending on how these go depends on what we do next!
Apologies as once again no pics - cant understand why nobody wanted to get up in time for my dressage?! and i cant decide if i want to remember yesterday with pros photos just yet!
Thanks for reading my ramblings
