Hattikins
Well-Known Member
Positives - stayed on board in the dressage warm up! and she did a quiet test for 33. Much room for improvement and madam broke in canter and stumbled twice in the sticky going. Left us in 10th ish. Jumped a lovely SJing clear despite a dodgy warm up (will explain later)
Now the XC....Tweseldown had a bit of a headache on their hands as as of about 10.30ish there was a horrendous fall on the XC and the poor horse was taken away in the horse ambulance and the rider was also taken away in an ambulance. Terribly sad as the word going round was that the horse had broken vertebrae in his neck and was pts. The rider apparently needed pinning and plating too. My thoughts go out to her and I really hope she has a speedy recovery, just the most terrible thing to happen. However consequently the SJing and XC were running 2hours late from then on as they couldnt continue until the horse ambulance returned. The SJing were calling everyone to jump but refused initially to run a board system so everyone was queuing at the entrance desperate to jump but couldnt go and warm up in fear of losing their place! On top of that multiple riders were pushing in despite having plenty of time until their next horse was due to be ridden. Eventually before all hell broke loose (and believe me tensions were beginning to fray a little around the edges!) they decided in a concensus that a board system would be better, so after standing for 10mins after my initial warm up with Hattie kicking and stamping at all the midges, I went back to warm up again with 4 infront of me - Hattie was wired and I couldnt get near a warm up fence again so ended up going in jumping cold apart from my earlier warmup - didnt seem to bother her though!
Onto the XC which although being run as efficiently as possible, was really suffering with the delays of earlier and there were horses everywhere! I went over to warm up and as some of you will know its a long old walk from the lorry park to the XC. I had 40min wait until my turn so like everyone else I stood above the warm up ring and waited. A lovely lady lent me her rug for Hattie while Mum went back to the lorry park to fetch one = lovely eventer number one! Eventually got to warm up and Hattie had absolutely had enough, warmed up very on edge, had a paddy going from the warm up to the start box - Mary King gave Hattie a bit of verbal encouragement = lovely eventer number two! Set off and to say Hattie was going like a steam train was an understatement, unfortunately in the first half of the course distance wise there was only 5 fences so there was nothing to make her concentrate so she just thundered round. Got to the inocuous house at about fence 7, by this time she had slowed a *bit*, we had a small disagreement and I popped off the side - cant tell you how infuriated i was with myself, I knew in my heart i should have taken her back teeth out after fence two and condensed her canter, but my inexperienced showed and that was that, Ill learn from this and move on but I cant tell you how gutted I was! Good deed Number three and four came from the brave person who caught Hatts when she was on a mission back to the lorry park! And the doctor who I hitched a lift with back to Hattie and gave me a leg up! Something must have clicked with Hattie in those few minutes because the rest of the round was a dream, she had calmed down, her brain was fully in gear and she was forward going but very responsive so all in all I was incredibly pleased with her. The final lovely eventer and good deed number five was a lovely girl who caught up with me while I was trying to hack a wired Hatts back to the lorry park from the XC and offered to keep me company on her lovely laid back horse she was great company, it considerably quietened Hatts down and I am extremely grateful for her kindness and thoughtfulness. So a mixed day really, another crap score to go on Hatts record but she has definitely recovered from her virus thats for sure! And she felt great so I really cant complain! Its just muppet rider that needs a talking to!
Now the XC....Tweseldown had a bit of a headache on their hands as as of about 10.30ish there was a horrendous fall on the XC and the poor horse was taken away in the horse ambulance and the rider was also taken away in an ambulance. Terribly sad as the word going round was that the horse had broken vertebrae in his neck and was pts. The rider apparently needed pinning and plating too. My thoughts go out to her and I really hope she has a speedy recovery, just the most terrible thing to happen. However consequently the SJing and XC were running 2hours late from then on as they couldnt continue until the horse ambulance returned. The SJing were calling everyone to jump but refused initially to run a board system so everyone was queuing at the entrance desperate to jump but couldnt go and warm up in fear of losing their place! On top of that multiple riders were pushing in despite having plenty of time until their next horse was due to be ridden. Eventually before all hell broke loose (and believe me tensions were beginning to fray a little around the edges!) they decided in a concensus that a board system would be better, so after standing for 10mins after my initial warm up with Hattie kicking and stamping at all the midges, I went back to warm up again with 4 infront of me - Hattie was wired and I couldnt get near a warm up fence again so ended up going in jumping cold apart from my earlier warmup - didnt seem to bother her though!
Onto the XC which although being run as efficiently as possible, was really suffering with the delays of earlier and there were horses everywhere! I went over to warm up and as some of you will know its a long old walk from the lorry park to the XC. I had 40min wait until my turn so like everyone else I stood above the warm up ring and waited. A lovely lady lent me her rug for Hattie while Mum went back to the lorry park to fetch one = lovely eventer number one! Eventually got to warm up and Hattie had absolutely had enough, warmed up very on edge, had a paddy going from the warm up to the start box - Mary King gave Hattie a bit of verbal encouragement = lovely eventer number two! Set off and to say Hattie was going like a steam train was an understatement, unfortunately in the first half of the course distance wise there was only 5 fences so there was nothing to make her concentrate so she just thundered round. Got to the inocuous house at about fence 7, by this time she had slowed a *bit*, we had a small disagreement and I popped off the side - cant tell you how infuriated i was with myself, I knew in my heart i should have taken her back teeth out after fence two and condensed her canter, but my inexperienced showed and that was that, Ill learn from this and move on but I cant tell you how gutted I was! Good deed Number three and four came from the brave person who caught Hatts when she was on a mission back to the lorry park! And the doctor who I hitched a lift with back to Hattie and gave me a leg up! Something must have clicked with Hattie in those few minutes because the rest of the round was a dream, she had calmed down, her brain was fully in gear and she was forward going but very responsive so all in all I was incredibly pleased with her. The final lovely eventer and good deed number five was a lovely girl who caught up with me while I was trying to hack a wired Hatts back to the lorry park from the XC and offered to keep me company on her lovely laid back horse she was great company, it considerably quietened Hatts down and I am extremely grateful for her kindness and thoughtfulness. So a mixed day really, another crap score to go on Hatts record but she has definitely recovered from her virus thats for sure! And she felt great so I really cant complain! Its just muppet rider that needs a talking to!
