CastleMouse
Well-Known Member
Ali sweated up quite a lot on the journey from my yard to the meet in Ballingarry, and once I had unboxed him he was quite jumpy, so I walked him around with another friend and her horse for a while before we were setting off. Once we set off, we did a bit of roadwork for about 5 minutes, and then headed onto land where the landowner has a few cross country jumps spread around. Whilst we were all standing around, a "newbie's" horse reared straight up and the guy was thrown off pretty badly... Not a good start to his day at all
Our first jump was a pallet fence with a large telegraph pole on top heading into forestry, it was well over a metre, but I was about the sixth person over it and Ali flew over it... literally! We then had to keep galloping on a path in the forest, and there was a hunt fence heading out into another field, Ali jumped it nicely, but the guy behind me fell off over his horse's head and took the whole bridle with him, so a lot of people hopped off their horses to try and catch the horse who was galloping around with the bridle tangled around his front legs
We then set off at full speed down quite a steep hill (eeep!
), fortunately I had a bit of control over Ali and managed to calm him down a bit before we jumped a bank up with a big (but nice) drop down. We then had to go over a small tyre jump to go into another field, which had a big drop which I only noticed at the very last minute, but I managed to survive that hairy moment...just about
Then we jumped a gate, and had to go through A LOT of water (the land around that area floods easily), and jump wire in the middle of a pond of water... No one was too keen on jumping it
I was about the fifth or sixth person to jump it, before Ali took off he had a good quick look at it but jumped it cleanly fortunately. One of the horses after me ripped down the whole fence though
We then did a few ditches through horrible marshy land, a lot of people fell off, fortunately I wasn't one of them... yet!! We had to through a very narrow path in a field (there was wire and trees on either side of us) over barbed wire... Everyone was so close together that most horses just walked through it, but Ali bloody leapt over it and I ended up right behind the horse in front of me whilst going down a small bank, Ali stumbled, and I just about managed to stay on... The guy behind me's horse did the same thing as Ali and ended up right behind Ali's arse as well
We then set off around a couple more fields, and then went through marshy forestry, where, whilst we cantering along, Ali stumbled and went down on his knees, and I went over his head and got wedged between a tree...
There's no way I could've stayed on no matter how hard I had tried to... Ali f*cked off down the path at full speed, but fortunately someone caught him and I hopped back on. Thankfully Ali was alright, no cuts (it was quite rocky ground) and he wasn't winded at all. We then went over a hunt fence out onto the agri. college's cross-country course (they have a PC and RC there, and they also host SJAI and Eventing Ireland events). We stood around for a while (Ali decided to have a rearing fit, fortunately it was a huge field so I walked him around the field with a few friends to calm him down a bit) and then we set off around the course (we managed to squeeze in a couple of jumps too
). When we were heading home Ali was an absolute brat on the road, but he settled down a bit once I was in front with the field masters. It was a fairly decent jumping day and I was surprisingly clean considering I fell in horrible muck
I won't be hunting this Saturday (as it's a cr*p standing around meet), but instead I'll be having a private lesson with an eventer in my area who has ridden at 3* level, so I'm really looking forward to that
I haven't had a lesson in at least a year and a half and I'm in desperate need of a few...
Sorry if I've bored you all to death with my report
Ali wondering what on earth that silver thingy that my father is holding is
Standing still... that didn't last too long though
Ali wondering what on earth that silver thingy that my father is holding is
Standing still... that didn't last too long though
