Diane_Pepper
Well-Known Member
Well it was rather a mixed day, but I'm very pleased with the finish to our BE season.
Mum took her horse, Lady (she was doing the PN3D) & Pepper down in the lorry early thurs morning to do her dressage & get the nags settled into their stables etc.
I arrived about 9pm as I had to go to school, took 3 & 1/2 hrs in the car
Had a crap night's sleep in the lorry - it was sooo cold!
Woke up at about 8am to give Pepper a stable bath!
Cheeky b*gger had ever so kindly been lying in his poo all night
As if butter wouldn't melt:
So managed to get him pretty clean & then off we popped to walk the XC which was well built & rather on the long side with an optimum of 5.52 (on a 14.2 cob type as if!!).
There were some good questions 2 waters, skinnies, corner, BIG brush fence
, owl hole..
Mum apparently thought wed do well to get round clear, nice to know high highly she thinks of me & Pepper!
Trundled back to Peppers stable to tack him up ready for dressage where he was going loopy cause lady was about 25 stables away & out of sight (they are totally inseparable
)
Got him tacked up, trying very hard to avoid being trodden on by the hyper beast & wandered the long way to the dressage arenas. They were running slightly early which gave us about 10mins to warm up, and he was going really nicely
Went in and did a lovely test, good bend etc & he was really listening to me & I was concentrating so hard I totally missed out the 3/4 strides of medium walk over C!! BOTH TIMES!
Id be dangerous if i had a bl**dy brain
So the judge beeped at me the 2nd time i missed it out & we went round & performed it, got a 7!!
So 1 error of course & a 4 for the 1st time round when I missed it (the trot & walk was in the same movement, hence why we didnt get a big fat zero
)
Some video stills
canter:
turning down the centre line:
halt - not quite square!
I was expecting about 50pens, as I wasnt sure whether id be given 2 errors or 1..and as the judge didnt salute me at the end, i got the impression that she thought i didnt ought to be there!
But we ended up on 34 (10th), which i was chuffed with, & if I hadn't been so dim, we would have got 31.5 (4th)!
Onto SJ, which was ok, with a few big spreads & imposing upright planks :O
Pepper warmed up well & we popped the cross pole & spread a few times then went in.
He jumped like a star & was giving the fences miles, even when we got a bit close (if this had been a year ago, he wouldnt have bothered holding up his legs properly).
look at him go!
bit close
Was unlucky to clip one of the big spreads which we had down, but the rest were fab!
Had a perfect stride at the planks and you can see him tucking up his little legs!
Then i held him through the last 3 fences related distance to 1 striding double because i knew he wouldnt make 1 stride in the double, so we got 2 mini strides in there
(2nd part of the double)
Pro SJ pic (same fence)
4 faults is a HUGE improvement for us at PN our SJ record is terrible (we had 24faults last year at somerford park!!
)
pats for the clever pony
Went over to the XC a bit early as they were calling for starters. Jumped the practise fence once & off we went!
Cleared 1,2,3,4 beautifully, had perfect strides at all of them. Then down the hill and a sharp turn to 5
where he put a little stride in, but was fine
loooong gallop up & down to fence 6 which was from light dark, but he didnt bat an eyelid
Then through the water at 7a to a skinny (b) which he had locked onto the minute he went into the water, flew 8,
9 (corner)
and trotted up to the water which was a little step in, as soon as he knew what to do he was in! Out of the 2nd water, then a tight right turn to a house, palisade, tiger trap thingy, then a sizeable log
with a sharp left turn to go round to a huuuuge brush fence (when i stood next to it it was up to my chin
) and he jumped that out of trot!!
Pro pic
I totally cr*pped myself! And Pepper was just like ahhh no big deal mum!, by this time he was tiring, so i carried him home & didnt push on too much after that, but he was an absolute star and jumped everything else like hed done it all before
Pro pic jumping the owl hole
Got back & heard that wed had 11.2 time pens
I wasnt overly surprised it was a very long course and undulating AND at the end of the season, so it wasnt as if i was expecting to be inside
Ended up 26th or something, and now for the ifs..
If we didnt have time faults we would have ended up joint 9th..and without the pole down & time faults we would have been 4th!
So not bad at all very pleased with how much hes improved this year
I think grid work with lots of bounces has helped improve his dressage AND Showjumping, so well be practising doing that again when he comes back into work in Jan.
But for now, Peppers on a well earned 2 month rest
Sorry it's so long!!
Mum took her horse, Lady (she was doing the PN3D) & Pepper down in the lorry early thurs morning to do her dressage & get the nags settled into their stables etc.
I arrived about 9pm as I had to go to school, took 3 & 1/2 hrs in the car
Had a crap night's sleep in the lorry - it was sooo cold!
Woke up at about 8am to give Pepper a stable bath!
Cheeky b*gger had ever so kindly been lying in his poo all night
As if butter wouldn't melt:
So managed to get him pretty clean & then off we popped to walk the XC which was well built & rather on the long side with an optimum of 5.52 (on a 14.2 cob type as if!!).
There were some good questions 2 waters, skinnies, corner, BIG brush fence
Mum apparently thought wed do well to get round clear, nice to know high highly she thinks of me & Pepper!
Trundled back to Peppers stable to tack him up ready for dressage where he was going loopy cause lady was about 25 stables away & out of sight (they are totally inseparable
Got him tacked up, trying very hard to avoid being trodden on by the hyper beast & wandered the long way to the dressage arenas. They were running slightly early which gave us about 10mins to warm up, and he was going really nicely
Went in and did a lovely test, good bend etc & he was really listening to me & I was concentrating so hard I totally missed out the 3/4 strides of medium walk over C!! BOTH TIMES!
Id be dangerous if i had a bl**dy brain
So the judge beeped at me the 2nd time i missed it out & we went round & performed it, got a 7!!
So 1 error of course & a 4 for the 1st time round when I missed it (the trot & walk was in the same movement, hence why we didnt get a big fat zero
Some video stills
canter:
turning down the centre line:
halt - not quite square!
I was expecting about 50pens, as I wasnt sure whether id be given 2 errors or 1..and as the judge didnt salute me at the end, i got the impression that she thought i didnt ought to be there!
But we ended up on 34 (10th), which i was chuffed with, & if I hadn't been so dim, we would have got 31.5 (4th)!
Onto SJ, which was ok, with a few big spreads & imposing upright planks :O
Pepper warmed up well & we popped the cross pole & spread a few times then went in.
He jumped like a star & was giving the fences miles, even when we got a bit close (if this had been a year ago, he wouldnt have bothered holding up his legs properly).
look at him go!
bit close
Was unlucky to clip one of the big spreads which we had down, but the rest were fab!
Had a perfect stride at the planks and you can see him tucking up his little legs!
Then i held him through the last 3 fences related distance to 1 striding double because i knew he wouldnt make 1 stride in the double, so we got 2 mini strides in there
(2nd part of the double)
Pro SJ pic (same fence)
4 faults is a HUGE improvement for us at PN our SJ record is terrible (we had 24faults last year at somerford park!!
pats for the clever pony
Went over to the XC a bit early as they were calling for starters. Jumped the practise fence once & off we went!
Cleared 1,2,3,4 beautifully, had perfect strides at all of them. Then down the hill and a sharp turn to 5
where he put a little stride in, but was fine
Then through the water at 7a to a skinny (b) which he had locked onto the minute he went into the water, flew 8,
9 (corner)
and trotted up to the water which was a little step in, as soon as he knew what to do he was in! Out of the 2nd water, then a tight right turn to a house, palisade, tiger trap thingy, then a sizeable log
with a sharp left turn to go round to a huuuuge brush fence (when i stood next to it it was up to my chin
Pro pic
I totally cr*pped myself! And Pepper was just like ahhh no big deal mum!, by this time he was tiring, so i carried him home & didnt push on too much after that, but he was an absolute star and jumped everything else like hed done it all before
Pro pic jumping the owl hole
Got back & heard that wed had 11.2 time pens
I wasnt overly surprised it was a very long course and undulating AND at the end of the season, so it wasnt as if i was expecting to be inside
Ended up 26th or something, and now for the ifs..
If we didnt have time faults we would have ended up joint 9th..and without the pole down & time faults we would have been 4th!
So not bad at all very pleased with how much hes improved this year
I think grid work with lots of bounces has helped improve his dressage AND Showjumping, so well be practising doing that again when he comes back into work in Jan.
But for now, Peppers on a well earned 2 month rest
Sorry it's so long!!
