*hic*
village idiot :D
So last week we spent two days at Isleham ending up freezing cold and wet and muddy and only just avoiding the snow (it got us on the way home though). Today I came back from Poplar Park with sunburn!
Since his first event last week my horse's whole attitude has changed, he's become a much easier horse to deal with on the ground. I'm fascinated by this and very pleased by it.
He loaded like a dream for the long haul to Poplar, almost dragged me into the lorry. I was dreading the drive as there was less than 35 yards visibility in the heavy fog at home. As we drove over to his rider's yard the fog began to clear. I live below sea level and his rider's yard is on one of what passes for hills in the Fens so I didn't have high hopes for the journey but it was bright sunlight from there on in, thank goodness.
He warmed up nicely for the dressage and although he was a little more stressy once he was doing his test it seemed reasonable and I was pleased with him.
His rider had been a bit concerned about the SJ warmup which yesterday had been a bit deep but my lad spends his days practicing his acrobatics and aerobatics turned out on a woodchip surface which can get deep after heavy rain and absolutely loved it. Once he finally got on the grass to SJ he was surprisingly controllable on what were, for him, short stridings, but he took out the front poles of two oxers with his back feet for 8. As they announced that he went forward on 44.5 we deduced that his dressage had been 36.5 so an improvement on last week. He seemed to be enjoying himself so we felt very positive about the round.
Quick change for XC and we went off to watch the last few jumps. After hearing he'd had a stop at the water the wait for him to get round to us was agonisingly long with a huge gap after the previous horse, so we knew that the time wouldn't be good. The jumps we saw him do looked very confident and positive, although he put in a short one at the last. Certainly the second water caused no issues! He's a big horse with a long slow stride and is not the most maneouverable of beasts and I gather steering was an issue with him just not taking tight turns tightly. He also put in one of his massive jumps so his rider was hit on the head by a low branch - not ideal. I understand that he hesitated at the first water, sometimes he'd have got away with that sort of hesitation, on this occasion not but such is life. He recovered remarkably quickly for a horse that has had little canter work and is not used to hills.
All in all I am very pleased with him, his dressage was better, he was jumping properly in the SJ, unlike his efforts last week, and he was bold and willing XC plus he was much easier to deal with on the ground.
Now he has a little gap before Burnham Market so we will try a full cheek bit for the steering and crack on with more flatwork and fitness work and see if we can keep up the improvement.
To cap it all I got back and found a lovely friend had not only delivered me half a ton of carrots but had refilledall the waters, checked my ancient boy who has an infected cut atm and made sure all the four left at home were ok. Thank you Claire, it was above and beyond the call of duty
Since his first event last week my horse's whole attitude has changed, he's become a much easier horse to deal with on the ground. I'm fascinated by this and very pleased by it.
He loaded like a dream for the long haul to Poplar, almost dragged me into the lorry. I was dreading the drive as there was less than 35 yards visibility in the heavy fog at home. As we drove over to his rider's yard the fog began to clear. I live below sea level and his rider's yard is on one of what passes for hills in the Fens so I didn't have high hopes for the journey but it was bright sunlight from there on in, thank goodness.
He warmed up nicely for the dressage and although he was a little more stressy once he was doing his test it seemed reasonable and I was pleased with him.
His rider had been a bit concerned about the SJ warmup which yesterday had been a bit deep but my lad spends his days practicing his acrobatics and aerobatics turned out on a woodchip surface which can get deep after heavy rain and absolutely loved it. Once he finally got on the grass to SJ he was surprisingly controllable on what were, for him, short stridings, but he took out the front poles of two oxers with his back feet for 8. As they announced that he went forward on 44.5 we deduced that his dressage had been 36.5 so an improvement on last week. He seemed to be enjoying himself so we felt very positive about the round.
Quick change for XC and we went off to watch the last few jumps. After hearing he'd had a stop at the water the wait for him to get round to us was agonisingly long with a huge gap after the previous horse, so we knew that the time wouldn't be good. The jumps we saw him do looked very confident and positive, although he put in a short one at the last. Certainly the second water caused no issues! He's a big horse with a long slow stride and is not the most maneouverable of beasts and I gather steering was an issue with him just not taking tight turns tightly. He also put in one of his massive jumps so his rider was hit on the head by a low branch - not ideal. I understand that he hesitated at the first water, sometimes he'd have got away with that sort of hesitation, on this occasion not but such is life. He recovered remarkably quickly for a horse that has had little canter work and is not used to hills.
All in all I am very pleased with him, his dressage was better, he was jumping properly in the SJ, unlike his efforts last week, and he was bold and willing XC plus he was much easier to deal with on the ground.
Now he has a little gap before Burnham Market so we will try a full cheek bit for the steering and crack on with more flatwork and fitness work and see if we can keep up the improvement.
To cap it all I got back and found a lovely friend had not only delivered me half a ton of carrots but had refilledall the waters, checked my ancient boy who has an infected cut atm and made sure all the four left at home were ok. Thank you Claire, it was above and beyond the call of duty
