HotToTrot
Well-Known Member
Neither of us mentioned the white elephant in the room. I knew, my husband knew that I knew and I knew that he knew that I knew, but we didn't voice our thoughts. We alluded to it, of course, skirted delicately round the subject, both of us careful not to say exactly what we were both thinking. We glossed over it lightly, pretended that this was totally normal and we'd been expecting it all along, and then we both carried on.
South of England had developed a corner.
It wasn't there in the Novice last year, or in the CIC* the year before that, but now here it was, three-sided, solid and quite indisputably corner-like. For anyone lucky enough to have escaped reading my posts until now, or to have read and (understandably) wiped the experience from their memories, I will say simply this: Armageddon.
Earlier in the week, I'd jumped a corner in an XC lesson. When I say jumped, what I actually mean is that, a couple of strides from the corner in question, I fiddled, upset Vito's approach and then fell off over his head.
My husband adopted a policy of positive reinforcement. "How does it feel to be riding a dressage winner?" he asked. He was referring a somewhat implausible turn of events that had taken place a mere week before. Vito and I had gone off to BD and we'd won an Elementary class with a score of 66%. "Have confidence," advised my husband, "ride with some swagger." Well swagger, as it turns out, is easily destroyed by the discovery that one's stock shirt is covered in wet patches of breast milk. Yes, we're here again. The leaky boobs. "Pass it here", I huffed, reaching for the baby as I stomped back to the trailer in disgust. "My left boob's leaking again." And so my warm up time slipped quietly away, as I sat in the car, feeding the baby and trying to empty the offending left boob.
And my dressage winner, hyped up by the tannoy, delighted to be out on grass, cantered through the trot work, changed legs through the canter work and bounded around in the transitions, whilst I, my Charlotte Dujardin delusions disintegrating along with my breast pads, went wrong in the test. My dressage winner was very decidedly last in the section after the first phase.
With the debacle behind us, we headed off to the showjumping. I stood next to the ring, watching the girl before me, waiting for my turn. She had an awkward jump over an oxer and landed on her horse's neck. "Sit up", I willed her. "You can still make the turn to the double." Unbalanced, her horse shot past the double and my sympathies went out to her. She'd have to circle. Then she screamed and, sliding off his neck, fell to the floor. Then there was that moment that every rider, and every skier, knows too well. The moment when the faller, prostrate on the floor, has been motionless for just a fraction too long. Struggling to keep my voice steady, I told the steward that I was going back over to the warm up, and I walked Vito quietly away.
In the ordinary course of events, I'd say a Novice SJ track was within both my emotional comfort zone and my technical capability. That has not always been the case, though, and it wasn't so long ago that I had my battles to fight over the coloured poles. Also, this was not the ordinary course of events. This was the tick in the box that was First Novice Since BC (Before Child) and if the demons that haunted my past wanted to find me, then I was a sitting duck. I walked round, rationalising it. My husband joined me. "Just going to have another quick jump", I said, lightly. I don't know whether my husband is uncannily perceptive, or whether he just knows me better than I realise, but once again, he knew what I was thinking, he knew how to respond and neither of us mentioned the elephant in the room. "Sure", he said, casually, "good idea". I didn't want to see the ambulance that came, the paramedics who attended the rider, or the stretcher that took her away. I kept myself to myself and circled round until my husband came to report back. "She's fine", he said, firmly. "You should start warming up again." I didn't know whether he was telling the truth, but I chose to believe him and I thought, not for the first time, how glad I was that he was there. I hope that she is now on the mend. I jumped a few and then went in. We were a bit inconsistent, a bit close here and a bit far off there, but generally it felt fine. He was too forward to the first double and that's a classic Vito trick. I know to sit up and use my weight and shoulders to hold him in the middle of the combinations, but I didn't get it quite right and the second part came down. It was annoying and avoidable, but testament perhaps to my lack of match practice and slowed reactions.
Photo:
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...LEUR Z Pendleton Viviane_zpsxklv2fjs.jpg.html
The baby was still asleep or at any rate, not moaning, and the toddler was desperate to brush Vito's tail, so we went back to the box and I changed Vito's boots over for the XC whilst the toddler amused herself with a couple of plaiting bands and bucket of water. My aim for the XC was to kick on a little more and to regain my feel for jumping out of a slightly faster pace. I kicked on over the first three and then set up for four. That is, I would have been setting up if setting up involved fiddling, hooking and generally behaving like a moderate to severe inconvenience to a horse who knows perfectly well what he's doing. Four was a double of offset palisades, similar to the fence I'd had problems with at Hambledon last year. Concerned about repeating my error, I interfered, shut down the canter. Vito, disgusted, chipped in and skewed over the fence, making me come to my senses and sit up for the second part. We were through just fine, but I felt disappointed with myself as we galloped away. There were a couple more and then we came to the white elephant. The corner. I looked up, got my line over the barrels that came four strides before and then looked for the corner and kicked. I don't really know whether we got the four or whether we in fact went on three, but either way, we'd done it, we'd jumped it and now not much else ought to bother us. I thought the water was a little stronger than last year and he took off boldly for the house in, surprising me slightly. I slipped my reins and sat up, looking for the exit fence and then we moved on to the step to house, the coffin, and we were home with a few time faults.
I'm really sorry, I know this is one of my more boring ones, but I need to go and wake the toddler up and eat some cake.
South of England had developed a corner.
It wasn't there in the Novice last year, or in the CIC* the year before that, but now here it was, three-sided, solid and quite indisputably corner-like. For anyone lucky enough to have escaped reading my posts until now, or to have read and (understandably) wiped the experience from their memories, I will say simply this: Armageddon.
Earlier in the week, I'd jumped a corner in an XC lesson. When I say jumped, what I actually mean is that, a couple of strides from the corner in question, I fiddled, upset Vito's approach and then fell off over his head.
My husband adopted a policy of positive reinforcement. "How does it feel to be riding a dressage winner?" he asked. He was referring a somewhat implausible turn of events that had taken place a mere week before. Vito and I had gone off to BD and we'd won an Elementary class with a score of 66%. "Have confidence," advised my husband, "ride with some swagger." Well swagger, as it turns out, is easily destroyed by the discovery that one's stock shirt is covered in wet patches of breast milk. Yes, we're here again. The leaky boobs. "Pass it here", I huffed, reaching for the baby as I stomped back to the trailer in disgust. "My left boob's leaking again." And so my warm up time slipped quietly away, as I sat in the car, feeding the baby and trying to empty the offending left boob.
And my dressage winner, hyped up by the tannoy, delighted to be out on grass, cantered through the trot work, changed legs through the canter work and bounded around in the transitions, whilst I, my Charlotte Dujardin delusions disintegrating along with my breast pads, went wrong in the test. My dressage winner was very decidedly last in the section after the first phase.
With the debacle behind us, we headed off to the showjumping. I stood next to the ring, watching the girl before me, waiting for my turn. She had an awkward jump over an oxer and landed on her horse's neck. "Sit up", I willed her. "You can still make the turn to the double." Unbalanced, her horse shot past the double and my sympathies went out to her. She'd have to circle. Then she screamed and, sliding off his neck, fell to the floor. Then there was that moment that every rider, and every skier, knows too well. The moment when the faller, prostrate on the floor, has been motionless for just a fraction too long. Struggling to keep my voice steady, I told the steward that I was going back over to the warm up, and I walked Vito quietly away.
In the ordinary course of events, I'd say a Novice SJ track was within both my emotional comfort zone and my technical capability. That has not always been the case, though, and it wasn't so long ago that I had my battles to fight over the coloured poles. Also, this was not the ordinary course of events. This was the tick in the box that was First Novice Since BC (Before Child) and if the demons that haunted my past wanted to find me, then I was a sitting duck. I walked round, rationalising it. My husband joined me. "Just going to have another quick jump", I said, lightly. I don't know whether my husband is uncannily perceptive, or whether he just knows me better than I realise, but once again, he knew what I was thinking, he knew how to respond and neither of us mentioned the elephant in the room. "Sure", he said, casually, "good idea". I didn't want to see the ambulance that came, the paramedics who attended the rider, or the stretcher that took her away. I kept myself to myself and circled round until my husband came to report back. "She's fine", he said, firmly. "You should start warming up again." I didn't know whether he was telling the truth, but I chose to believe him and I thought, not for the first time, how glad I was that he was there. I hope that she is now on the mend. I jumped a few and then went in. We were a bit inconsistent, a bit close here and a bit far off there, but generally it felt fine. He was too forward to the first double and that's a classic Vito trick. I know to sit up and use my weight and shoulders to hold him in the middle of the combinations, but I didn't get it quite right and the second part came down. It was annoying and avoidable, but testament perhaps to my lack of match practice and slowed reactions.
Photo:
http://s1362.photobucket.com/user/V...LEUR Z Pendleton Viviane_zpsxklv2fjs.jpg.html
The baby was still asleep or at any rate, not moaning, and the toddler was desperate to brush Vito's tail, so we went back to the box and I changed Vito's boots over for the XC whilst the toddler amused herself with a couple of plaiting bands and bucket of water. My aim for the XC was to kick on a little more and to regain my feel for jumping out of a slightly faster pace. I kicked on over the first three and then set up for four. That is, I would have been setting up if setting up involved fiddling, hooking and generally behaving like a moderate to severe inconvenience to a horse who knows perfectly well what he's doing. Four was a double of offset palisades, similar to the fence I'd had problems with at Hambledon last year. Concerned about repeating my error, I interfered, shut down the canter. Vito, disgusted, chipped in and skewed over the fence, making me come to my senses and sit up for the second part. We were through just fine, but I felt disappointed with myself as we galloped away. There were a couple more and then we came to the white elephant. The corner. I looked up, got my line over the barrels that came four strides before and then looked for the corner and kicked. I don't really know whether we got the four or whether we in fact went on three, but either way, we'd done it, we'd jumped it and now not much else ought to bother us. I thought the water was a little stronger than last year and he took off boldly for the house in, surprising me slightly. I slipped my reins and sat up, looking for the exit fence and then we moved on to the step to house, the coffin, and we were home with a few time faults.
I'm really sorry, I know this is one of my more boring ones, but I need to go and wake the toddler up and eat some cake.
