tigers_eye
Well-Known Member
With terrible warnings about 130 in the first class yesterday for the unaffiliated Derby I set off bright and early for Patchetts today and got there over an hour before the class started! I have said I would never jump William there again after he took against warming up indoors there last year, but as the Derby runs over both indoors we warmed up outdoors, and I made very sure I was first to go. The course looked very interesting: 18 fences, including a standard double and a L shaped pen thing that was numbered as a double. Loads of fir trees, a sodding great big water jump, and some turf-like stuff rolled out under some fences. We had to jump 1 to 7 in the big arena, through to the other one and over 8 to 12, then back and over 3 more in the big arena.
William warmed up very friskily! He has become incredibley light in the mouth since his day's hunting, an altogether different horse to ride! Anyway, we went in and quite a few people were standing around to see if it could be done. Set off and jumped the first lot really nicely, into the other arena and he shot round the pen thing like a PPC pony, turned to the water and I hit him just in case, which I think he thought was unnecessary as I lost control a bit after that. Hared over the next ones and back into the other arena and just tipped the last... Still got big pats though as he did jump very well.
On to Liberty who managed to climb back into the lorry mid-tack-up
. He warmed up well, although I'm still on my guard after him dumping me twice the other day (serious brownie point loss). Thought he'd probably have heart-failure at all the decorations and water trays, so my aim was to get round without any stops. He had his eyes out on stalks, but jumped really rather nicely, tipped the oxer at 7 as we came in disunited, into the scary arena... Was rather wobbley and I beat 7 shades of sh*t out of him coming into the big water jump which he jumped! Yay! Then sailed round the rest without batting an eyelid so he also finished with just the 4 faults.
Rather pleased with myself for leaving 17 out of 18 fences up on each (I know - eventer mentality
).
So that was the first part of my Addington Wildcard Qualifier plan accomplished. Coming up: some lessons (
shock horror), and a few BSJA outings, am hoping to try and jump a 125 at Addington in 10 days time as it's the only realistic chance I have of jumping anything bigger than a Newcomers between now and then.
Oh, pro photographers were there, there were some pretty entertaining ones of us so I'll put the link up when they're online.
William warmed up very friskily! He has become incredibley light in the mouth since his day's hunting, an altogether different horse to ride! Anyway, we went in and quite a few people were standing around to see if it could be done. Set off and jumped the first lot really nicely, into the other arena and he shot round the pen thing like a PPC pony, turned to the water and I hit him just in case, which I think he thought was unnecessary as I lost control a bit after that. Hared over the next ones and back into the other arena and just tipped the last... Still got big pats though as he did jump very well.
On to Liberty who managed to climb back into the lorry mid-tack-up
Rather pleased with myself for leaving 17 out of 18 fences up on each (I know - eventer mentality
Oh, pro photographers were there, there were some pretty entertaining ones of us so I'll put the link up when they're online.
