FigJam
Well-Known Member
Hope you are sitting comfortably, as per usual, plenty waffling/photos included!
I'll start at the start, which was a 4am alarm call, yuck! Got all the last min bits done and managed to leave the yard on time at 6am. Plan was to get there nice and early while it was quiet and give her plenty time to take everything in as the atmosphere at Strathallan a couple of weeks ago was a bit of overload for her!
Seemed to work, I had loads of time to get my number, a bacon roll for brekkie and tack up without and need to rush or panic. Weather was varying between very light drizzle and light, but proper rain when we arrived. Ground was wet on the top, but still holding up underneath. Headed over to the dressage with loads of time to spare so I could let her mooch around a bit and hopefully get the nosiness out of the way before the test!
Did a much nicer test than last time out, improved by 4 pen pts to get 41 which I was pretty happy with. Not sure how it compared with the rest of the class at the moment. Still plenty to work on (consistent outline, rather than glimpses!) but at least heading in the right direction.
Some photos (courtesy of Mr FigJam!)
SJ- warm up already pretty poached at the fences and not being helped by someone who was obivously not competing until tomorrow schooling in there from before I went in to warm up and they were still in there after I'd jumped in the ring.
She warmed up pretty badly which is not like her.
Did a couple nice jumps over the other two jumps and then one more over spread with front as a cross, then decided to just go in and go for it. Luckily, the ground in the arena wasn't too bad and she was back to normal, taking me to the fences and no last minute funny business.
Course was nice, started pretty small, but got up to height as it went on. There was a 360 turn from 5 to 6 which was quite slippy, ok with my studs though. Took a bit of a flyer at the last but I can't remember hearing any clunks so she was certainly happier in the ring than the warm up!
No.3;
No.4;
No.5;
No.6;
XC- walked this with the lovely _Olivio_ last night and it seemed usual Scone beefiness with no.2 being fairly narrow early on in the course;
And no.3 coming up large and fast! This fence seemed to be the bogey fence of the day with plenty run outs at it. It was pretty wide and had spooky bright bales of shavings in front and a slight downhill slope to it on the last stride. She got a bit of a growl and kick to make sure we didn't joing the list of riders cursing it and got in close, but over!
I think I'm mid-"Good girl" in the shot!
Then over the viaduct fence, up the hill, round the corner and downhill towards house fence under a tree, ground quite squidgy at this part of the course, so dread to think what it was like later.
Happy to gallop up the steep hill to the top field, over the straw bale fence easy, then round the corner to combo fence- small table, 2 strides, skinny brush. Got a lovely jump in, kicked on as she often struggles with distances and thought we were all set to make the correct distance for once. But, no, she decided three would be more interesting at the last minute but cleared the skinny with no probs and wasn't thinking of running out, just really feel she wasn't liking the ground being so wet and muddy.
Angled no.9, simple palisade and nice jump over no.10, chair. Cantered down the top half of the slope back down to the main field, but on the second half of the slope she clocked the big mud bath at the bottom and reverted to precious trotting through it!
Over 11, grey sloping box fence, 12 simple log (in place of previous trakhnner, yay!) and lovely over no.13, the corner which I was worried about. Purely because I panic and ride like a numpty to them for some reason?!
(by which point Mr FigJam had managed to peg it round for second shot of photos!
Water hadn't changed from May other than instead of the fence after the water being separately number, it was a C-element this time. After being sticky at no.6, I was worried she'd clock the water last minute and back off the house, but she was fab, flew through barely breaking stride.
Had a nice photo over C, but Mr FigJam has forgotton to pass it on, boo! He's out shooting a gig tonight, so will get it off him later!
Then onwards;
to no.16 log parallel, got in close but picked up ok, then no.17 barrels fine and onto the home straight for the last fence boxy "saw bench".
BIG pats and smiles to get round clear and found out we had 4.4 time pens, which wasn't too bad considering ground/her trot protests and a few chipped in strides which would have eaten precious seconds.
Mr FigJam stayed out on course taking some more photos and came back to report that he'd heard over the commentary that we'd gone into the LEAD and stayed there a good 20mins or so!
However, by the end of the section, only three people with proper dressage/faster ponies pipped us to the post and we finished in 4th!!!
Only found out about prize giving/final position at 13.59 when Mr FigJam pegged it over to trailer to tell me prize giving was at 14.00! Legged it over to realise with horror that everyone was in SJ kit! (and I wasn't!
A MASSIVE thank you to _Olivio_ who swapped me her jacket (after her's wasn't needed!
So have my very first BE rosette pride of place outside Hopalong's stable (and it matches our XC colours, how well thought out?!
Absolutely shattered, but still buzzing. Was lovely seeing team _Olivio_ again who was fab and bumped into Saz(I forget the exact numbers, sorry!
Weather really cheered up for the afternoon and I left it in bright sunshine, so hopefully the ground dries out for tomorrow and the nice weather stays with us.
Good luck to everyone competing tomorrow and hope everyone else riding today had a good day.
