Oodles of Oasby Oopsies... (long explanation of crap day on paper!)

kerilli

kerilli

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Apols for quality of vid, taken by my lovely friend Tracey who is a great helper and groom but not the best videographer in the world. Still owt is better than nowt, as they say...
vid has FINALLY uploaded and is here: http://youtu.be/FUMWOK0mq3U It's funny in far too many places for my liking... ;) ;)
I stepped Daisy down to BE90 to ensure the confidence is back after our Pink Fence Debacle at Little Downham. We went xc schooling in the week and it certainly seemed to be... started out with small stuff, fine, and then dared us both to do a decent trak which she absolutely flew, great.
Nice times at Oasby, got there in good time. Walked xc course, liked it a lot. Plenty of little questions... skinnyish fences here and there which I thought she might wibble at. Cute little Sunken Road (not done 1 before), 2 decent steps down (ditto). Other fences dotted around for her to boggle and take evasive action at, and a bale of straw propped up against the corner as a bit of a ‘wing’. Hmm, I did wonder about that actually... ;) ;)
She warmed up v nicely for the dressage, I even have video evidence (start of vid) of the fact that the canter was quite civilised and the canter-to-trot transition was almost a model of attentiveness and politeness, quite balanced, really improving... I tested this a few times just in case, and did quite a bit of lateral work, all felt good.
Went over to do test, trotwork, okay... went into canter... OMG where did my nice polite mare go? Repeated half-halts were TOTALLY ignored and I’m sorry to say that I decided to be rude right back, I thought “I’m chucking this test, you are NOT going to learn to take the **** out of me in here”. I also said a very very bad word, luckily up by A. ;) ;)
Trot re-established the drastic way, all ok, went up to canter... here we went again. My half-halts were even more definite, I also used my legs, core, seat, shoulders, and even in desperation my voice every stride (usually works with her) all the way down the long side to no avail, STILL no reaction... had to get horribly rude AGAIN right in front of the judge. Awful. Oh dear. Walk work was nice, the mare didn’t bear a grudge fortunately...
Expected to get 40 ish if the judge was fair, as the good bits were quite nice, but the dire bits were, frankly, execrably bad... but it was just about worth it imho to convince D that she isn’t The Queen of the World once we get into a dressage arena. Also to avoid the big E for disappearing into the distance... the Lady Was Not For Turning.
Actually got a 41, which I thought was fine, and good fair judging. I was talking about this when I saw the score... and happened to be standing right beside the judge! I thanked her, and apologised to for the awful moments. Fortunately she could see exactly what I’d had to do and v nice about it! So, sheet is 6s and 7s with a few 5s (“acceptance of the bridle” haha) and 4s (“against hand” has to be the biggest euphemism ever seen on a test sheet). Lovely judge. Lovely. Unlovely mare. Humph.
That behind us, on to the SJ. Warmed up a bit argumentatively and only seemed really happy on a forward shot, when I saw a slightly more SJery one she clouted it. Hmm. Went in and did quite a nice round, I utterly refuse to go back to my teen habits and see fliers everywhere (which would make her deliriously happy, but I can see which way that’d go) so I hope we got a happy medium. Just tapped 1 down behind, nice related distance, everyone went on 5, I went on 5, she just had it. Oh well. She could have tried a bit harder there I think... but overall a reasonable round, felt fluent, she landed on the correct leg after every fence except fence 1, which is a first... no disagreements. Happy enough all round.
On to the XC. She felt great in the warm-up, really up for it. Started out very well, keen, looking for her fences (albeit spooking at everyone else’s). Didn’t waver at all at the early skinnyish fences, felt bold and happy, very reassuring. Unfortunately I managed to drop my whip (first time for everything, sigh) when shortening my reins after a particularly exuberant jump, but all still seemed fine, staying straight and having fun, and when she bowled on a bit to the corner, ignoring my attempts to slow her (hmm, see a pattern here?!), I thought “okay, just take it in your stride then” and trusted her... BIG mistake. Monkey time. At that point she boggled hugely at the fence dressing (incl straw bale propped up at point of corner to HELP fgs), cocked her jaw, I put my leg on but had no whip for reinforcement... and she ran out. That’ll teach me to be trusting...
Circled, hooked her back, got to it with NO stride, ugh, because I wasn’t having a run out again thankyouverymuch... and she jumped it. Not prettily, but no hesitation. Git.
Into woods, down fairly meaty steps, all good, finished keen and positive. Lessons learned all round I think... rubbish on paper but all educational and she definitely has her mojo back.
Overall I suspect that she enjoyed herself quite a bit more than I did! We now have a new contender for Most Annoying Horse On The Planet, I think... Jooooopiter’s crown is in jeopardy...
Horlicks and choc brownies if you got this far.
 
Loving the commentary!

She looks very cute. I think that days which are crap on paper can be the most useful ones to have.
 
What a Madam in the dressage! D_K was writing he says he can lip read:D

Agree with Lolo the not so good on paper days are some of the most useful, fully expecting one tomorrow:);)
 
Grrrr. Naughty mare. Is she 5 (can't remember?). Possibly teeth? On the plus side, good to get a relatively decent run XC to get rid of the pink fence demons, but sounds like Daisy is having toddler tantrums :mad:.

I suspect this is old rope for you, but presume you already have a martingale stopper over the top of your whip to reduce slippage chances? Of course that doesn't help when I appear to have lost mine in my Land Rover :p
 
Norty Daisy. Not sure whether it was the filming but looked like there were 3 tests on top of each other - were the arenas that close!?

Nice Sj & XC though (apart for the run out which I didn't really see as was laughing at the images of the sky/lorry park/FJ). Great commentary!

Also gave the oppo when vid finished to see tame crow again - is he/she still there?
 
A_B, on dear, in that case D_K's vocabularly is possibly bigger now, I was NOT impressed with her naughtiness! Butter wouldn't melt in her last test, she stayed rideable throughout and it was so much better, and I really thought we could build on that. Hmm back to the drawing board...
now_loves-mares, no, she's 7, she had a lot of time off because she was so wrong behind, and also because she put me on crutches for rather a long time! It's not teeth, not tantrums, just typical Opinionated Daisy moments cropping up just when I could do without them! ;) ;)
Yes, I have 2 martingale stoppers over the end of my whip. Sigh. The good thing is that I went back and found it immediately (it's a new one that I quite like) so at least I didn't have to buy a new one! Might make a bigger attempt to mend my old one though as that has a slightly different handle and I never dropped that one...
Nicnac, yes, the arenas were quite close, probably 3-4m between them? The horse in the closer arena really was that enormous, too!
Yes, the vid antics and commentary are very funny. Good effort though, I'm not complaining. Better than the vid that contained a long convo (between 2 guys, naturally) about turning eventers into horsemeat... ;) ;)
No, the tame crow went off again as soon as we'd healed up his shoulders to his satisfaction and he'd put on loads of weight, ungrateful git. Shame cos we both miss him hugely and spoilt him rotten. Hope s/he'll come back one day maybe. The time we got with him was a huge privilege.
 
Y'know, normally I couldn't always be bothered to watch vids on here, but the comments on the commentary made me - hahahahaha! Brilliant! :D

There's lots to like. The trot work looks 'swingier' than last time (she looks more comfortable to me) and OK she bogged off in the canter, but the canter itself was nice ;) and the walk was lovely. Always look on the bright side.

Nice mare - I shall look forward to following her progress next year.
 
Yes, the comments are very funny, bless. Will have to explain the %age -> penalties because the poor guy was obv completely mystified and Tracey was too busy concentrating on videoing to explain! The dr and sj were very watchable (she obv decided the zoom function just wasn't worth the effort) but I did love her eventual 'aim camera at fence then you CAN'T miss the horse' tactic!
I was very happy with the good bits tbh, it wasn't a terrible test overall, and if the awful rude bits had been nice we'd have been on for a mark in the (low?) 30s I reckon. She was v v good in the walk considering we'd probably left a few molars behind in the corner... :( :( :( I must never let my trainer see that test though because I doubt he'd ever speak to me again...! "You must never pull, as soon as you pull you lose the horse..." Arghhhh. I am ashamed that I felt I had to do that. Twice. :( :( :(
She is a nice mare, I'm very proud of her actually (esp given what she's contended with physically) and I think she could be quite impressive. It's difficult because she HAS to feel that she's having fun, if not she'll down tools in a very major way, but there's a very fine line between 'fun' and 'got to get on with the job now honey'... as long as it's just me having sense of humour failure i suspect we'll be okay!
 
If it makes you feel any better, my friend was there doing the Novice and had a significantly worse time of it than you. Did a good dressage but apparently (her words!) rode like a pleb in the SJ, came off, managed to complete the SJ but then had to retired before XC :(
 
Love the commentary! :D sounds similar to that of my parents when videoing apart from neither of them have a clue.

That horse in the arena next to you :eek: he is huge! Shame about her moments but when it all comes together it looks like it will be very nice.

She's looking confident again though after her pink fence incident so fingers crossed next time you won't loose your whip and she will fly round.
 
vallin said:
If it makes you feel any better, my friend was there doing the Novice and had a significantly worse time of it than you. Did a good dressage but apparently (her words!) rode like a pleb in the SJ, came off, managed to complete the SJ but then had to retired before XC :(
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That shouldn't make me feel better at all... I know all of us have crap days. That's rubbish though, hope she gets the wheels back on very soon. I did hear about a loose horse in the SJ, and there was a loose horse on the xc when I went to find my whip. Also pics at the tog's stand of someone being decanted near the very straightforward steeplechase fence. I know I didn't really have the worst day there. ;) ;) ;) Anyway, it's all about the education at this stage... I thought it was primarily supposed to be Daisy getting more educated though!

Yes dafthoss, he was absolutely enormous, made D look tiny (which she isn't really). Hope you're right about hanging onto my whip, and her flying round next time, that'd be good for both of us!
 
I'm another one loving the whole videoing thing: the commentary; the HUMUNGA-HORSE (Ross ain't nothing on this one!) in the next dior arena, I couldn't take my eyes off it :p and then the class videoing of the XC with excellent shots of grass, trees, cars and the odd horse mixed in - think they missed both the runout and the successful retake of the corner but was so seasick by that point I couldn't swear to it :D

Well, just one of those days, always more satisfying to get all three phases wrong in one day rather than one on each of three runs ;)
 
TableDancer said:
Well, just one of those days, always more satisfying to get all three phases wrong in one day rather than one on each of three runs ;)
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Yes, that did occur to me (*Pollyanna face*), not like the Pro who led the dr and jumped clear and then missed a fence out xc this weekend, acc to Twitter... hopefully the day she manages that (ha!) we'll get the other duck in the row too!
 
Nice bits of DR looked really nice :). Just wanted to say I too had the second part of 5 stride related distance down for no apparent reason :/ got there on the right stride but same as you just felt the girlie didn't try enough and apparently according to friend it looked the same from ringside but friend also pointed out that she noticed that by the time I jumped the ground in front was very sticky (not slippy more sucky!) so perhaps had a bit of influence on it? Still shouldn't have had it really :o. We also recently seem to have had the 'no I want to keep cantering out the arena rather than trot' moments so know how frustrating it is particularly when they warm up nicely! Ive found that the more I try and relax and 'breathe' the less severe the tense moments are but ultimately just practice I suppose :). She looks lovely and sounds like she will be ready to crack on next season anyway :).
 
Another fan of the commentary here and another person gobsamcked at the size of the chestnut next to you! LOL!

Can't comment much more than that really except to say that the nice bits of the test were nice. Liked her free walk, and her trot in the second half was good too!

You could hire out the video takers - I'd pay for their commentaryon some of my vids!
 
becca1305 said:
Nice bits of DR looked really nice :). Just wanted to say I too had the second part of 5 stride related distance down for no apparent reason :/ got there on the right stride but same as you just felt the girlie didn't try enough and apparently according to friend it looked the same from ringside but friend also pointed out that she noticed that by the time I jumped the ground in front was very sticky (not slippy more sucky!) so perhaps had a bit of influence on it? Still shouldn't have had it really :o. We also recently seem to have had the 'no I want to keep cantering out the arena rather than trot' moments so know how frustrating it is particularly when they warm up nicely! Ive found that the more I try and relax and 'breathe' the less severe the tense moments are but ultimately just practice I suppose :). She looks lovely and sounds like she will be ready to crack on next season anyway :).
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Thanks, I walked the distance and it was perfect, so I just kept the canter and let her come to the fence, in hindsight should maybe have shortened it a little as jumped in a bit forward... so hard to tell. It may have been a bit sticky/heavy in front but that fence was really small so I think she could have tried a LITTLE bit harder!
Yes, I should have relaxed more, I agree... but I tried that at Burnham and she veered out of the arena up by A (v nice judge gave us a 3 not an E but did comment 'left arena'...! so I know I have to be quick to correct her if she has a naughty escape thought! That many half halts really should have had an effect, the minx.
She'll be good next season, it's all early days yet so I mustn't be a perfectionist.

Bedlam, I'm sure I could hire them out as commentators for a modest fee, makes watching dressage vids so much less boring, huh? I'd love to hear him commentating at 4*, it would be utterly hysterical.
It's my fault really, Tracey was saying beforehand that we were aiming for a 30 and I laughed and said flippantly "may as well go for a 15" and I think he believed me... ;) ;)
 
I love the commentary too!

And no you definitely weren't the worst on the day as I came behind you. I also ran out of the corner which completely took me by surprise too as we were spot on for it. Hey ho. We also didn't make the skinny out of the water. Too busy gawping at the blue hose pipe!

My day looked crap on paper and technically, yes it was crap. However I got to spend the whole day selfishly indulging in what I love and there isn't a rosette that can beat a day like that.
 
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