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Been quietly plugging away over the winter training. The orange one is 17 this year so have been reassessing our aims for him and it is likely he probably won't do an awful lot more eventing after this year but we'll see how it goes. He feels incredible at the moment.
The other week we went for a SJ lesson down at Coombelands with regular trainer Chris Burton and he jumped his socks off, dragging me round and making distances feel short. The final course was between 1m15 and 1m20 and he just flew! We actually had 4* rider Harry Dzenis in our group and another horse at 1* so I was feeling the pressure but no worries with Monts - he rose to the occasion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwW-L9AxJfM
Another jump lesson - I don't think he's struggling with the height here!
Annoyingly he really jarred up my old back injury which meant I spent the next few days resting and having physio and ended up doing the Winter Regionals in a lot of pain which meant I couldn't ride at my best. Fabulous boy still picked up 8th in the Elem Open Freestyle, beating a lot of pros on their posh young horses. He was just outside top ten in the Medium Restricted Freestyle, hampered by me as he really deserved top 10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XnBniquDlI
We have been plugging away on the flatwork and have had scores up to 65% at Advanced Medium now so the aim for after Badminton is Advanced. With this in mind we had a run-through of A102 in our lesson on Friday and tried out the tailcoat for the first time. OMG - how exciting! I have wanted to compete in a tailcoat for so many years and never ever dreamed this horse would be the one to take me there. My little 15.2hh is not blessed with the most dressage-oriented conformation but boy does he have the biggest heart! I know I need to really lift my hands up and look up but he's so pretty how could I not look at him?!
Also, my wonderful trainer let me ride her current Grand Prix horse to feel the more Advanced movements which was just the best fun ever although his trot was so elevated I couldn't sit to it to save my life!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYF4E1gjGCI
And I turned him into a reindeer for Christmas hunting - he looks so impressed!
We were meant to start eventing at Tweseldown but it cancelled so have to wait till Goring now and it's only 7wks till Badminton - eek, where does the time go?!
The other week we went for a SJ lesson down at Coombelands with regular trainer Chris Burton and he jumped his socks off, dragging me round and making distances feel short. The final course was between 1m15 and 1m20 and he just flew! We actually had 4* rider Harry Dzenis in our group and another horse at 1* so I was feeling the pressure but no worries with Monts - he rose to the occasion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwW-L9AxJfM
Another jump lesson - I don't think he's struggling with the height here!
Annoyingly he really jarred up my old back injury which meant I spent the next few days resting and having physio and ended up doing the Winter Regionals in a lot of pain which meant I couldn't ride at my best. Fabulous boy still picked up 8th in the Elem Open Freestyle, beating a lot of pros on their posh young horses. He was just outside top ten in the Medium Restricted Freestyle, hampered by me as he really deserved top 10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XnBniquDlI
We have been plugging away on the flatwork and have had scores up to 65% at Advanced Medium now so the aim for after Badminton is Advanced. With this in mind we had a run-through of A102 in our lesson on Friday and tried out the tailcoat for the first time. OMG - how exciting! I have wanted to compete in a tailcoat for so many years and never ever dreamed this horse would be the one to take me there. My little 15.2hh is not blessed with the most dressage-oriented conformation but boy does he have the biggest heart! I know I need to really lift my hands up and look up but he's so pretty how could I not look at him?!
Also, my wonderful trainer let me ride her current Grand Prix horse to feel the more Advanced movements which was just the best fun ever although his trot was so elevated I couldn't sit to it to save my life!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYF4E1gjGCI
And I turned him into a reindeer for Christmas hunting - he looks so impressed!
We were meant to start eventing at Tweseldown but it cancelled so have to wait till Goring now and it's only 7wks till Badminton - eek, where does the time go?!
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