blood_magik
Well-Known Member
I can't believe the season's nearly over. The next time I jump competitively will be at Blair, which is a little scary. 
Anyhoo, I'm a lot more prepared this year - this time I didn't leave it to the weekend before to jump the class so I'm hoping I won't be paralysed with fear when I see the height of the fences.
So, Lenny had the last of his Grassroots Showing League shows yesterday. We've had a different judge every time and we've had consistent results - usually first or second with the odd lower placing. He's been reserve three times and champion once.
He was full of it yesterday, which resulted in a cheeky buck when I asked him to extend.
The judge's comments were super helpful though and she said that the difference between our first show in the Riding Club Horse class and our last show in Equitation was like night and day. We ended up with a first and three seconds, and then Lenny took champion. 
We missed one of the shows so I'm not sure how that will affect where we stand in the league. I'm hoping that it won't but you never know... Fingers crossed.
I also took Raz into one of the training classes and he won it. The judge was very complimentary so I'm hoping the judges at Blair will love him, too.
Today we went jumping. Mr T. was up first in the 70cm open and he was fab, as always. Apparently we were a bit slow (it didn't feel it) but he jumped another lovely double clear to finish 5th. We'll move up to the 80cm class next time we're out.
[video=youtube;zE1_QRmbHkI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE1_QRmbHkI[/video]
Next up was Lenny. He warmed up nicely and was taking me into the fences but I felt him tense as soon as we got into the arena. He went for the first fence but then ducked out at the last minute - not sure why as we got a good stride. He popped it the second time round but did he usual take-hold-and-run trick so I pulled him up. After talking to my instructor, I'd decided to jump him in his universal for the first round and then change to his pelham but he'll be going straight into the pelham from now on. Annoyed doesn't even cover it...
Beau was up last. He was a little stressy, napping at the gate and spinning when he didn't get his way. I expected him to settle when we went into the ring but he felt like a coiled spring under me - the people sitting on the bank just outside the ring were horse-eating monsters and the plant pot at the top of the arena? Nope, he wasn't going anywhere near it.
To be fair to him, he did buck up his ideas once we started cantering and headed for the first fence. It went really well until I got a bit of a crap stride into number 6 and did my usual circle-instead-of-trying-to-fix-it thing. I think it was because I'd seen a fair few horses spook at the filler under number 7 and because I'm still a little wary of ruining the big guy's confidence by putting him in a bad take-off spot. Anyways, we circled and he jumped it no bother to finish on 4 faults.
Then I took him into the 1.05m. We jumped ou first one last weekend and he felt amazing but I circled away from a fence and had to retire because I couldn't cut in to get back to the fence. :roll eyes:
Today, I didn't circle. Instead, we had an unlucky pole. I made a bit of a mess of the distance between six and seven but luckily the big guy saved us and left the fence up so we finished on 4 faults.
One day I'll get round without making a silly mistake.
Video of Beau's round.
[video=youtube;iDapwX5DL94]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDapwX5DL94[/video]
So, that's it now until Blair. I can't wait.
Thanks for reading.
Anyhoo, I'm a lot more prepared this year - this time I didn't leave it to the weekend before to jump the class so I'm hoping I won't be paralysed with fear when I see the height of the fences.
So, Lenny had the last of his Grassroots Showing League shows yesterday. We've had a different judge every time and we've had consistent results - usually first or second with the odd lower placing. He's been reserve three times and champion once.
He was full of it yesterday, which resulted in a cheeky buck when I asked him to extend.
The judge's comments were super helpful though and she said that the difference between our first show in the Riding Club Horse class and our last show in Equitation was like night and day. We ended up with a first and three seconds, and then Lenny took champion. We missed one of the shows so I'm not sure how that will affect where we stand in the league. I'm hoping that it won't but you never know... Fingers crossed.
I also took Raz into one of the training classes and he won it. The judge was very complimentary so I'm hoping the judges at Blair will love him, too.
Today we went jumping. Mr T. was up first in the 70cm open and he was fab, as always. Apparently we were a bit slow (it didn't feel it
) but he jumped another lovely double clear to finish 5th. We'll move up to the 80cm class next time we're out. [video=youtube;zE1_QRmbHkI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE1_QRmbHkI[/video]
Next up was Lenny. He warmed up nicely and was taking me into the fences but I felt him tense as soon as we got into the arena. He went for the first fence but then ducked out at the last minute - not sure why as we got a good stride. He popped it the second time round but did he usual take-hold-and-run trick so I pulled him up. After talking to my instructor, I'd decided to jump him in his universal for the first round and then change to his pelham but he'll be going straight into the pelham from now on. Annoyed doesn't even cover it...
Beau was up last. He was a little stressy, napping at the gate and spinning when he didn't get his way. I expected him to settle when we went into the ring but he felt like a coiled spring under me - the people sitting on the bank just outside the ring were horse-eating monsters and the plant pot at the top of the arena? Nope, he wasn't going anywhere near it.
To be fair to him, he did buck up his ideas once we started cantering and headed for the first fence. It went really well until I got a bit of a crap stride into number 6 and did my usual circle-instead-of-trying-to-fix-it thing. I think it was because I'd seen a fair few horses spook at the filler under number 7 and because I'm still a little wary of ruining the big guy's confidence by putting him in a bad take-off spot. Anyways, we circled and he jumped it no bother to finish on 4 faults.
Then I took him into the 1.05m. We jumped ou first one last weekend and he felt amazing but I circled away from a fence and had to retire because I couldn't cut in to get back to the fence. :roll eyes:
Today, I didn't circle.
Instead, we had an unlucky pole. I made a bit of a mess of the distance between six and seven but luckily the big guy saved us and left the fence up so we finished on 4 faults. One day I'll get round without making a silly mistake.
Video of Beau's round.
[video=youtube;iDapwX5DL94]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDapwX5DL94[/video]
So, that's it now until Blair. I can't wait.
Thanks for reading.
