vallin
Well-Known Member
At 8pm on Friday night I actually felt prepared for Solihull ODE. In the lead up to the event D had had a positive show jumping session at Houghton, a couple of good schooling sessions and the box was packed and ready to go. By 9pm it was back to my usual state of chaos - the groom was no where to be seen, I'd forgotten to pack my body protector and I'd read my dressage time wrong!
Luckily by 0715 on Saturday we were back on schedule, fuelled up on diet coke and enjoying some breakfast Pringles
An easy journey to Solihull meant we could walk the XC course and watch a couple of show jumping round before dressage. There were a couple of related distances in the show jumping that I thought might cause me navigational issues but overall I was happy that both courses would be testing but not unfair.
Back to the box to get ready for the dressage, our usual 10 minute warm up (one day I'll try a longer warm up ) and then in for the test. D have warmed up with nice paces but an apparent inability to bend, a theme which continued into the test leading some very nice bits and some sections that felt like I was steering an oil tanker.
A quick breakfast consisting of more diet coke, Indian snacks and some pita chips, then a change of tack and over to the show jumping. To say our warm up went tits up would have been putting it mildly (crashing through the jumps isn't the aim of the game as far as I'm aware ) but a least it gave me a kick up the backside to actually start riding the horse and not just expect her to follow my telepathic instruction. Into the ring and she was feeling nice and forward but I wasn't to be fooled, leg on, crack down the shoulder and she was over 1, another reminder before two and three, leg on quietly but firmly for the dog-leg from 4 to 5, she started to back of again at six so another crack down the shoulder before six, seven and the double at eight, and finally we were over the final fence at nine! No stops, no strops and no poles! A miracle appeared to have happened! Even more of a miracle was that a clear SJing and a surprising dressage score of 27.3 had left us in first place going into the XC *eee*
Chuffed!
Apparently at this point D decided that she didn't want to tarnish her devil horns and that despite feeling fantastic for the first three XC fences, four of the remaining 10 fences required greater inspection, especially the flowerpots she decided to destroy at fence 6 *sigh* apparently today wasn't our day. I feel I should be disappointed with D as to be honest, bar fence 5, the stops were all pretty ungenuine of her. However, we managed two out of three phases well and she's feeling so much more 'up for it' that I still came away smiling
Eagerly off!
Fence 3
Penultimate fence
Finishing well
As always, onwards and upwards - this time to our first BE at Little Downham!
Over and out,
V
PS. More pictures here: http://www.vallin-photography.co.uk/blog/
Luckily by 0715 on Saturday we were back on schedule, fuelled up on diet coke and enjoying some breakfast Pringles
An easy journey to Solihull meant we could walk the XC course and watch a couple of show jumping round before dressage. There were a couple of related distances in the show jumping that I thought might cause me navigational issues but overall I was happy that both courses would be testing but not unfair. Back to the box to get ready for the dressage, our usual 10 minute warm up (one day I'll try a longer warm up
) and then in for the test. D have warmed up with nice paces but an apparent inability to bend, a theme which continued into the test leading some very nice bits and some sections that felt like I was steering an oil tanker.
A quick breakfast consisting of more diet coke, Indian snacks and some pita chips, then a change of tack and over to the show jumping. To say our warm up went tits up would have been putting it mildly (crashing through the jumps isn't the aim of the game as far as I'm aware
) but a least it gave me a kick up the backside to actually start riding the horse and not just expect her to follow my telepathic instruction. Into the ring and she was feeling nice and forward but I wasn't to be fooled, leg on, crack down the shoulder and she was over 1, another reminder before two and three, leg on quietly but firmly for the dog-leg from 4 to 5, she started to back of again at six so another crack down the shoulder before six, seven and the double at eight, and finally we were over the final fence at nine! No stops, no strops and no poles! A miracle appeared to have happened! Even more of a miracle was that a clear SJing and a surprising dressage score of 27.3 had left us in first place going into the XC *eee*
Chuffed!
Apparently at this point D decided that she didn't want to tarnish her devil horns and that despite feeling fantastic for the first three XC fences, four of the remaining 10 fences required greater inspection, especially the flowerpots she decided to destroy at fence 6 *sigh* apparently today wasn't our day. I feel I should be disappointed with D as to be honest, bar fence 5, the stops were all pretty ungenuine of her. However, we managed two out of three phases well and she's feeling so much more 'up for it' that I still came away smiling
Eagerly off!
Fence 3
Penultimate fence
Finishing well
As always, onwards and upwards - this time to our first BE at Little Downham!
Over and out,
V
PS. More pictures here: http://www.vallin-photography.co.uk/blog/
