LeannePip
Well-Known Member
After a very 'almost' first year of eventing our final event bought us to Tweseldown, one of my favorite venues ever. As a kid unable to event due to lack of horse, it was always my dream to ride here, a dream which came true with my first horse Pip, despite finishing on a 3 figure score! I've schooled around here a tonne, but it has taken 3 years to get back here in a competitive capacity.
Ruby's first trip out this year was acctually at Tweseldown for a XC clinic with Mark Corbett, it was fairly dramatic;
As was the next visit there a couple of weeks later;
but thankfully things did get better from here!
Our last event at Munstead was also quite dramatic so i made the decision to drop back down to the 80 for this last run, to give us both some confidence back and to make sure we finished on a high. So the other week we headed back to our favorite venue for a quick school to check everyone was still happy, which thankfully we were - no lasting damage!
https://www.facebook.com/leanne.mccabe1/videos/vb.1338493424/10207400335190097/?type=3&theater
So we arrived at Tweseldown slightly un prepared having only ridden twice in the last week due to some Physio treatment and me being at night school one day a week but i felt confident that she'd be fine. A little fresh before the dressage, but rode nicely. Test started out really well but lost it slightly in the first canter as in my haste to 'prepare for the transition' we actually got a very nice transition a marker too early and then struggled to get control of the circle at E, but otherwise it was OK. I was annoyed at myself for throwing away so many marks in a relatively straight forward test.
Quick change and onto showjumping, a bit of a nemesis for me, my default is to hook and hold for every fence so i've really been working on keeping a forward canter and not holding for the first stride i see. Plugging away at home has seen great improvements but once in the ring i default back to holding. A couple of my lovely friends were stewarding the SJing so it put me at ease to see some friendly faces and stop me from panicking! she warmed up super and i managed to ride well and forward enough and avoided any dodgy jumps. The course was twisty but fair and upon entering we had a major spook at the wavy planks at 4 so we started off a bit tense as the bell had already gone, but i rode forward and didn't check! Yay! All was perfect until after fence 7 when we lost the canter and went all disunited and i struggled to get it back which meant we took a flyer into the double at 8 miraculously leaving it all up but i couldn't get the canter back under control in time for the skinny upright at the last and unfortunately we had that down. but overall super pleased with how well she jumped!
Still disappointed with the dressage and thinking we'd be out of contention with a pole down as well, i felt the pressure leave and just wanted a good run XC, so after another quick change we were ready to go. I cant really tell you fence by fence what happened as i have no idea, all i know is she felt incredible all the way. Never looking or questioning, jumping out of any stride it was just amazing! The team at Tweseldown have done such an fabulous job with the course since the change over, it was a real privilege to ride around, despite it only being an 80 everything was beautifully presented and dressed it felt like a real occasion! We also made it back without time faults which is the first time ever! Was amazed to hear as we crossed the finish that we'd gone into 2nd with a 31.5 dressage, but with still 3 hours of XC to go i wasn't hopeful of holding on but pleased to be there none the less.
This water surprisingly caused a lot of problems all day, not for Ruby though - she stormed through like a real pro, with me just about keeping hold of my knitting!;
In the end we managed to hang onto third with someone just pipping us to second by only 0.5! It was a great feeling to finish the season on such a high after nearly making it so many times but always being dogged by my often poor riding and sometimes circumstance - but it finally all came together!
Well done if you got this far and thank you for every ones kind comments, inspiration and words of advice along the way!
Ruby's first trip out this year was acctually at Tweseldown for a XC clinic with Mark Corbett, it was fairly dramatic;
As was the next visit there a couple of weeks later;
but thankfully things did get better from here!
Our last event at Munstead was also quite dramatic so i made the decision to drop back down to the 80 for this last run, to give us both some confidence back and to make sure we finished on a high. So the other week we headed back to our favorite venue for a quick school to check everyone was still happy, which thankfully we were - no lasting damage!
https://www.facebook.com/leanne.mccabe1/videos/vb.1338493424/10207400335190097/?type=3&theater
So we arrived at Tweseldown slightly un prepared having only ridden twice in the last week due to some Physio treatment and me being at night school one day a week but i felt confident that she'd be fine. A little fresh before the dressage, but rode nicely. Test started out really well but lost it slightly in the first canter as in my haste to 'prepare for the transition' we actually got a very nice transition a marker too early and then struggled to get control of the circle at E, but otherwise it was OK. I was annoyed at myself for throwing away so many marks in a relatively straight forward test.
Quick change and onto showjumping, a bit of a nemesis for me, my default is to hook and hold for every fence so i've really been working on keeping a forward canter and not holding for the first stride i see. Plugging away at home has seen great improvements but once in the ring i default back to holding. A couple of my lovely friends were stewarding the SJing so it put me at ease to see some friendly faces and stop me from panicking! she warmed up super and i managed to ride well and forward enough and avoided any dodgy jumps. The course was twisty but fair and upon entering we had a major spook at the wavy planks at 4 so we started off a bit tense as the bell had already gone, but i rode forward and didn't check! Yay! All was perfect until after fence 7 when we lost the canter and went all disunited and i struggled to get it back which meant we took a flyer into the double at 8 miraculously leaving it all up but i couldn't get the canter back under control in time for the skinny upright at the last and unfortunately we had that down. but overall super pleased with how well she jumped!
Still disappointed with the dressage and thinking we'd be out of contention with a pole down as well, i felt the pressure leave and just wanted a good run XC, so after another quick change we were ready to go. I cant really tell you fence by fence what happened as i have no idea, all i know is she felt incredible all the way. Never looking or questioning, jumping out of any stride it was just amazing! The team at Tweseldown have done such an fabulous job with the course since the change over, it was a real privilege to ride around, despite it only being an 80 everything was beautifully presented and dressed it felt like a real occasion! We also made it back without time faults which is the first time ever! Was amazed to hear as we crossed the finish that we'd gone into 2nd with a 31.5 dressage, but with still 3 hours of XC to go i wasn't hopeful of holding on but pleased to be there none the less.
This water surprisingly caused a lot of problems all day, not for Ruby though - she stormed through like a real pro, with me just about keeping hold of my knitting!;
In the end we managed to hang onto third with someone just pipping us to second by only 0.5! It was a great feeling to finish the season on such a high after nearly making it so many times but always being dogged by my often poor riding and sometimes circumstance - but it finally all came together!
Well done if you got this far and thank you for every ones kind comments, inspiration and words of advice along the way!
