Shrimp
Well-Known Member
Well our good streak came to an end today at Llanymynech JRN but I suppose these things cant last forever. Shall start from the beginning...
Got there at 7.45
and then spent ages in the secretarys tent while they checked out his vaccination records (his have be restared twice so that took longer to check) and then went onto walk the xc very fast. Thought it was quite a tough course with lots of questions but we had jumped clear here last year so was feeling quite confident about it but it would test us.
Dressage: warmed up really well, nice and active and listening. When we got into the arena I dont know what I did but it was nowhere near as good as it could have been. It was my fault completely and I dont have any excuses so i'd just have to live with it, was v frustrated with myself!! Was shocked to find out that we got 36.2
when id thought we'd be lucky if we broke 40. That cheered me up a bit
SJ: wasnt overly big imo but all poles and alot of people were having faults. Shrimp didnt let me down and jumped clear even though i lost my reins completely after fence one and somehow managed to jump no. 2 So we were in a pretty good position at this point.
XC: warmed up as usually and had been hearing all morning that people were having problems all over the course but didnt really want to listen to that. Started off over no 1 great, backed off no.2 but jumped fine same for no.3. Got to no. 4, a double of a narrow table followed two strides to an even narrower skinny. He really backed off here and it wasnt the most elegant of jumps but we got over it. I then had to push him onto fence 5 (unusual as hes normally at full steam by this point) but jumped ok. Now onto no. 6, a roll top followed by a ditch. Well came to the roll top backing off and not on the greatest of strides and stopped. Ok, doesnt matter i thought, came round again, he didnt want to know and stopped again. Put my hand up and retired.
Shrimp hasnt stopped like that in nearly two years and that was at Cumwhinton were we got eliminated as the ground was really hard and he just said no by fence 4. He hasnt stopped at all xc in the past year and the stops that we have had, have mainly been either rider error and just inexperiance (skinny's etc) I just knew he wasnt right and he told me 'no thanks, this is hurting and im not enjoying it.' He's a sensitive little thing
The ground was hard though had a good grass covering so thought it would be ok but obviously not. Even if i had represented for a third time, i knew we wouldnt have got over it.
I think I made a sensible decision as i would like to have a full season this year and pushing it at one event would have been pointless but I might aswell say bye bye to Weston now but hey-ho, the section was really competitive anyway so would have been lucky to get a place! Then again, out of the total scores that were up in my section when i left, 1/3 had either w/d or ret. after dres/sj, 1/3 had xc problems and the rest were clear but mostly with time so it definately was testing!
Shrimps now having a week off while ive got exams
and then were going to do the farm ride at somerford so its xc schooling but less intense.
So not so successful this weekend but as i said, we live to fight another day and we are both home safe and in one piece so what more could i ask for?
Thanks for reading and virtual chocs are coming------->
Got there at 7.45
Dressage: warmed up really well, nice and active and listening. When we got into the arena I dont know what I did but it was nowhere near as good as it could have been. It was my fault completely and I dont have any excuses so i'd just have to live with it, was v frustrated with myself!! Was shocked to find out that we got 36.2
SJ: wasnt overly big imo but all poles and alot of people were having faults. Shrimp didnt let me down and jumped clear even though i lost my reins completely after fence one and somehow managed to jump no. 2 So we were in a pretty good position at this point.
XC: warmed up as usually and had been hearing all morning that people were having problems all over the course but didnt really want to listen to that. Started off over no 1 great, backed off no.2 but jumped fine same for no.3. Got to no. 4, a double of a narrow table followed two strides to an even narrower skinny. He really backed off here and it wasnt the most elegant of jumps but we got over it. I then had to push him onto fence 5 (unusual as hes normally at full steam by this point) but jumped ok. Now onto no. 6, a roll top followed by a ditch. Well came to the roll top backing off and not on the greatest of strides and stopped. Ok, doesnt matter i thought, came round again, he didnt want to know and stopped again. Put my hand up and retired.
Shrimp hasnt stopped like that in nearly two years and that was at Cumwhinton were we got eliminated as the ground was really hard and he just said no by fence 4. He hasnt stopped at all xc in the past year and the stops that we have had, have mainly been either rider error and just inexperiance (skinny's etc) I just knew he wasnt right and he told me 'no thanks, this is hurting and im not enjoying it.' He's a sensitive little thing
I think I made a sensible decision as i would like to have a full season this year and pushing it at one event would have been pointless but I might aswell say bye bye to Weston now but hey-ho, the section was really competitive anyway so would have been lucky to get a place! Then again, out of the total scores that were up in my section when i left, 1/3 had either w/d or ret. after dres/sj, 1/3 had xc problems and the rest were clear but mostly with time so it definately was testing!
Shrimps now having a week off while ive got exams
So not so successful this weekend but as i said, we live to fight another day and we are both home safe and in one piece so what more could i ask for?
Thanks for reading and virtual chocs are coming------->
