Rambo
Well-Known Member
Is there a creature alive on the planet today, that possesses the ability to deliver such extremes of emotion. From the lowest low, to the highest high.........we've had it all today
We went to Pyecombe for BSJA today. Arrived in time to jump my 'catch ride' in the 1m Open, before the serious stuff started with Bo later.
A brief summary of my ride in the 1m.....a 13yo Grade B who has never won a thing SJ'ing (that's BSJA grading for you
) who has only jumped a single clear round in the past 12 months. He's a nice horse to ride on the flat but has a habit of coming home with 3 or 4 down with his current inexperienced rider. Anyway, i was asked to ride him in a class to see if i could get a tune out of him
Now, bear in mind i rode this horse for 10 minutes on thursday evening and popped a couple of fences...then had to go in and jump a 1m 2-phase class without having walked the course today. All things taken into consideration, we did okay....had 2 poles down (one an argument over striding...the other his carelessness), and a communications failure at fence 2 resulting in a runout. Not a John Whitaker / Buddy Bunn story, but not a disaster either so reasonably happy with that
Onto Bo, and the matter of a 1.10m Open and a 1.15m Scope qualifier. All classes were run as 2-phase today and the 1.10m was (as always) bang up to height. It was the same course as the Newcomers which had only produced around 4 DC's from 45 starters with fence 12, a square oxer off 4 short strides claiming most of the victims. Bo warmed up well....especially considering he had had the best part of a week off leading up to the show. We went in and started well...jumping fences 1 and 2 very nicely. Fence 3 was on a slightly funny stride from fence 2 and we found ourselves ever so slightly off so i had to ask for a slightly long one from him...i felt a little hesitation, but he jumped it big and clean
Fence 4 was a very airy planks, again on a funny stride with a dogleg...unfortunately we found ourselves in the same place as for fence 3....slightly off....and this time the hesitation turned into putting down for another stride
Unfortunately by this time i was already halfway over the fence and so it all ended up in a bit of a mess and with me rolling around in the sand....bridle and all in hand
I wasn't hurt at all, but my confidence had taken a bit of a bump as he hasn't done that to me in a while
We were entered for the 1.15m Members Cup qualifier next...and i was already slightly nervous before we walked the course.....and OMFG...if i wasn't nervous before, i was cacking it afterwards
It was pretty damned big...and the best part of the JO section was a full up 1.25m. To add to the trauma it had started to rain pretty heavily and i was very close to withdrawing and going home
Anyway....The tight wad in me got the better of the situation and i decided that as i'd paid...i'd play
And g*d i'm glad i did ! Bo was amazing....we flew round the first phase clear and started the JO. I must admit at this point i'd already had ideas along the lines of retiring if i got this far (!) but decided to continue as he felt good. We rather annoyingly rolled th front rail of the first fence in the JO (fence 12 that had caused so many problems in the NC's earlier) but then he just flew...the upright at 1.25m, then round to a double of 1.15m before turning back to another square oxer at max height, then the BIG one....away from the collecting ring, a huge oxer at 14....1.25m back rail again and 5 strides to the last...another 1.25m upright. As i turned to the last line i took a deep breath and just hoped i'd get a good shot at it...and i did
He flew them both and we finished on just the 4 faults in the JO
It might not sound like a great achievement, and ordinarily i would agree, but the fact that we felt so low from the class before just made the whole thing even more incredible. He gave me such an awesome ride around that course this afternoon that i will remember it for some time to come
The one slight annoyance however is with the photographer
They got the whole sequence of me falling off....good for them, i'm game for a laugh too....but they didn't bl**dy well cover the bigger class because in their words 'hardly anyone ever buys the photo's from them
Unfortunately for you lot, but fortunately for me (
) they don't have a website so you'll never see the low side of my day today
We went to Pyecombe for BSJA today. Arrived in time to jump my 'catch ride' in the 1m Open, before the serious stuff started with Bo later.
A brief summary of my ride in the 1m.....a 13yo Grade B who has never won a thing SJ'ing (that's BSJA grading for you
Onto Bo, and the matter of a 1.10m Open and a 1.15m Scope qualifier. All classes were run as 2-phase today and the 1.10m was (as always) bang up to height. It was the same course as the Newcomers which had only produced around 4 DC's from 45 starters with fence 12, a square oxer off 4 short strides claiming most of the victims. Bo warmed up well....especially considering he had had the best part of a week off leading up to the show. We went in and started well...jumping fences 1 and 2 very nicely. Fence 3 was on a slightly funny stride from fence 2 and we found ourselves ever so slightly off so i had to ask for a slightly long one from him...i felt a little hesitation, but he jumped it big and clean
We were entered for the 1.15m Members Cup qualifier next...and i was already slightly nervous before we walked the course.....and OMFG...if i wasn't nervous before, i was cacking it afterwards
Anyway....The tight wad in me got the better of the situation and i decided that as i'd paid...i'd play
It might not sound like a great achievement, and ordinarily i would agree, but the fact that we felt so low from the class before just made the whole thing even more incredible. He gave me such an awesome ride around that course this afternoon that i will remember it for some time to come
The one slight annoyance however is with the photographer
