Arniebear
Well-Known Member
And WOW what a day it was!! 
I truly do have an A.M.A.Z.I.N.G horse!! (i may be slightly biased!!)
I shall set the scene.... grab a cuppa it could be a long one!!
So after out last run at LD80 where we placed again in the top ten, my plan was to go straight back to LD 2 days later and school over the flagged 90 course... unfortunately the glorious British weather put a stop to this and the course was subsequently closed..... ahhh **** that means we were heading to Aston for our first 90 without evvvver going round a 90 XC track.... what could go wrong eh?! sure we have schooled over 90 fences.... back in February!! Not going to lie... this made me have a wobble... were we ready?! was i going to completely **** it and my horse up?!
The dressage has been going somewhat badly, i say badly just not what it has been previously, our last few BE runs saw us posting 39s when previously we had gotten 33 so something wasnt right, he really wasnt getting on with his bit anymore, so after a few trail and errors i gave in and hired the NS turtle top.... well wow it has changed him so much in the short amount of time, he is back to being his happy self, loose in the neck and willing to take a contact down and push through from behind more. I honestly didnt think a bit could make that much difference that quickly, but we went out to do some unaff dressage and he was back to posting 65%s, that may not be amazing to some but he is still only 6 and relatively new to novice level dressage so i was dead chuffed!!
The SJ has been better lately, we headed out to a local unaff comp on tuesday evening, popped round the 85 to come 3rd and the 95 where we had a few rider related poles but all in all a good evening jumping!!
Now back to Aston!! I knew this event would be emotional for me, not only was it our first 90 on a horse i had produced from scratch by myself but this same event 2 years ago was to be Bears last BE sadly he damaged a tendon a few days after ending his event career... in fact he still isnt in full work from that injury Anyway back to Beanz i couldnt have dreamt of the day going the way it did...
There is a small theme running through my posts... i am very good at getting lost!! getting to Aston didnt disappoint! There was road closures local to the venue so i left super early... i got up at 3:45am to bath the delightful coloured!!! Actually getting there was somewhat uneventful getting home however... i wont go there it will take ages!! haha
Arriving with plenty of time meant a lovely meander round the xc, it was a lovely inviting course not too much i thought that would cause us an issue!
Onto the dressage, the warm up was carnage everyone was crashing into everyone! He warmed up very well considering and performed a very sweet test for a 35.8!! Super proud of that, yes there's still lots to work on but it was soo much better than the last few events so we are on the right track!
The SJ... my thinking being by jumping 95 on tuesday the 90 would look small.... erm NOPE.... still looked huge!! The warmup was once again carnage so i literally jumped each fence once and left! My aim for the sj was to sit up, shoulders back and push from the seat.... well blood hell it actually worked... the little legend only went clear in his first 90!!! sooo proud of my little munchkin!!
Now onto the XC!! the first real question came at fence 4, a right handed corner on a sweeping left turn, followed by fence 5 the log before the water, then onto the bank.... i got stuck on this bank with bear for quite a while in our first 90 back in 2015!! haha i had a lovely chat with the starters explaining that this was our first 90 and i was travelling solo... i always like to tell the starters that as they are the last people i see!! 5,4,3,2,1 and we were off, he flew out the start box over 1, 2, 3 and onto the corner at 4 made mincemeat of that, and the water and the bank... wow he was flying next up a spread, a table, a house to the next qu on the course a skinny to a step up then onto a boat thing to a ditch on a right turn..... Yeah he flew through all of this too.... WOW now only 2 from home!! He just ate them up and flew through the finish.... CLEAR!!! I still dont own a stop watch so no idea on time but WHO CARES!!! DOUBLE CLEAR IN OUR FIRST 90!!!!!
So unbelievably proud of him!! He was epic and he made both jumping phases feel completely effortless... I eventually made it over to the scoreboard to find out we had only bloody placed!! YES PLACED IN OUR FIRST EVVVVVER 90!!! We came home in 3:32, the xc time was 3:35!! So nothing to add from our dressage score of 35.8 meant we ended up 9th!! FRICKING LEGEND!!!! It really is such an amazing feeling when your home produced 6 year old completely bosses his first ever 90!! Will take quite some time to wipe the smile off my face, he really is my little superstar!!
Here are some pics of him making it look all too easy! Next up for us is Keysoe Hope you have enjoyed reading about our little adventure and our step up to 90.... no idea what i was sooo worried about!!
I truly do have an A.M.A.Z.I.N.G horse!! (i may be slightly biased!!)I shall set the scene.... grab a cuppa it could be a long one!!
So after out last run at LD80 where we placed again in the top ten, my plan was to go straight back to LD 2 days later and school over the flagged 90 course... unfortunately the glorious British weather put a stop to this and the course was subsequently closed..... ahhh **** that means we were heading to Aston for our first 90 without evvvver going round a 90 XC track.... what could go wrong eh?! sure we have schooled over 90 fences.... back in February!! Not going to lie... this made me have a wobble... were we ready?! was i going to completely **** it and my horse up?!
The dressage has been going somewhat badly, i say badly just not what it has been previously, our last few BE runs saw us posting 39s when previously we had gotten 33 so something wasnt right, he really wasnt getting on with his bit anymore, so after a few trail and errors i gave in and hired the NS turtle top.... well wow it has changed him so much in the short amount of time, he is back to being his happy self, loose in the neck and willing to take a contact down and push through from behind more. I honestly didnt think a bit could make that much difference that quickly, but we went out to do some unaff dressage and he was back to posting 65%s, that may not be amazing to some but he is still only 6 and relatively new to novice level dressage so i was dead chuffed!!
The SJ has been better lately, we headed out to a local unaff comp on tuesday evening, popped round the 85 to come 3rd and the 95 where we had a few rider related poles but all in all a good evening jumping!!
Now back to Aston!! I knew this event would be emotional for me, not only was it our first 90 on a horse i had produced from scratch by myself but this same event 2 years ago was to be Bears last BE sadly he damaged a tendon a few days after ending his event career... in fact he still isnt in full work from that injury
Anyway back to Beanz i couldnt have dreamt of the day going the way it did...There is a small theme running through my posts... i am very good at getting lost!! getting to Aston didnt disappoint!
There was road closures local to the venue so i left super early... i got up at 3:45am to bath the delightful coloured!!! Actually getting there was somewhat uneventful getting home however... i wont go there it will take ages!! hahaArriving with plenty of time meant a lovely meander round the xc, it was a lovely inviting course not too much i thought that would cause us an issue!
Onto the dressage, the warm up was carnage everyone was crashing into everyone! He warmed up very well considering and performed a very sweet test for a 35.8!! Super proud of that, yes there's still lots to work on but it was soo much better than the last few events so we are on the right track!
The SJ... my thinking being by jumping 95 on tuesday the 90 would look small.... erm NOPE.... still looked huge!!
The warmup was once again carnage so i literally jumped each fence once and left! My aim for the sj was to sit up, shoulders back and push from the seat.... well blood hell it actually worked... the little legend only went clear in his first 90!!! sooo proud of my little munchkin!! Now onto the XC!! the first real question came at fence 4, a right handed corner on a sweeping left turn, followed by fence 5 the log before the water, then onto the bank.... i got stuck on this bank with bear for quite a while in our first 90 back in 2015!! haha i had a lovely chat with the starters explaining that this was our first 90 and i was travelling solo... i always like to tell the starters that as they are the last people i see!! 5,4,3,2,1 and we were off, he flew out the start box over 1, 2, 3 and onto the corner at 4 made mincemeat of that, and the water and the bank... wow he was flying next up a spread, a table, a house to the next qu on the course a skinny to a step up then onto a boat thing to a ditch on a right turn..... Yeah he flew through all of this too.... WOW now only 2 from home!! He just ate them up and flew through the finish.... CLEAR!!! I still dont own a stop watch so no idea on time but WHO CARES!!! DOUBLE CLEAR IN OUR FIRST 90!!!!!
So unbelievably proud of him!!
He was epic and he made both jumping phases feel completely effortless... I eventually made it over to the scoreboard to find out we had only bloody placed!! YES PLACED IN OUR FIRST EVVVVVER 90!!! We came home in 3:32, the xc time was 3:35!! So nothing to add from our dressage score of 35.8 meant we ended up 9th!! FRICKING LEGEND!!!! It really is such an amazing feeling when your home produced 6 year old completely bosses his first ever 90!! Will take quite some time to wipe the smile off my face, he really is my little superstar!!Here are some pics of him making it look all too easy! Next up for us is Keysoe
Hope you have enjoyed reading about our little adventure and our step up to 90.... no idea what i was sooo worried about!!
