Charem
Well-Known Member
I think seeing as i've done a report for every other event Asbo has entered it's only right I do one for when it didn't all go to plan.
I had a lonely 2 hour drive up there as owner and friend's were all preoccupied with non-horsie activities
- the only bonus being that owner can't stand Radio 1 and so in her absence Bom Bom by Sam and The Womp was blaring as we rolled on through the thick fog at West Wilts in search of the lorry park.
Grabbed my number, casually tacked up and off we set for dressage. Fog had lifted and it was starting to heat up, Asbo warmed up okay - no naughtyness although he was really lacking sparkle. I was pleased that he didn't have any paddies about going to the dressage arenas and he did a nice enough test but again it felt like a bit of an effort.
After popping back to lorry and depositing pony, dog and I ran round the XC. The ground was surprisingly okay - I was expecting it to be rather hard but in places it was actually cut up. Lovely course, nothing there that I thought would cause concern and so it was back to lorry to get ready for SJ.
I had a small panic that I was running late however they were only allowing the next 6 in to the warm up and were a little behind so we were told to stand in a collecting area. Unfortunately the sun had really come out by then and it was baking! Eventually got called to the warm up and had the pleasure of watching Little Brittania, Headley Brittania's 4 yr old daughter warm up along side us. Again Asbo felt dead, tried to wake him up with some forward canters around the edge but he still continued to be stuffy. Popped the warm up fences a couple times and then walked round until it was our turn. As usual once in the ring he perked up and I felt confident that we were going to have a nice round....how wrong was I He didn't want to go anywhere near the first fence and so we had a stop at that. Jumped it well on the second attempt and he went on to jump 2,3 and 4 nicely too. Got to 5 which was a double and again he decided that actually he didn't want to jump it. He crawled over it on second attempt and then we were both very unbalanced coming to the second part and so he ducked right and the bell went
On hindsight I should have taken him back in the warm up but with the 6 riders only system I doubt I would have been allowed and tbh I was feeling rather deflated about the whole situation. So back to lorry to pack up, grabbed our dressage sheet (33.5 which I thought was rather generous) and trugged on back home.
I spent most of the drive mulling over why he decided to play up. I think a lot of the stuffyness was down to how hot it got and the standing round. He's starting to get his winter wollies so perhaps its time to clip him. He seems well in himself so I don't think there's a virus brewing but i've bought him some Propell Plus to see if that helps. He's pretty fit (regularly does 4 hour rides without breaking a sweat) so he should be more than capable of a little intro event. With regards to the stopping, a while back owner and I thought we would put him in a working hunter class at Ellingham show which had an awfully small warm up with lots of kids bombing round. He got upset/peed off and went in the ring in a foul mood and refused to go anywhere near the first fence, we were eliminated and had to leave the arena. I think he may have picked up on this as in the past if i've had problems with him doing something I stick at it until he goes but then he was asked to jump, refused three times and then got away with it...which is kind of what happened again today So i'm currently trying to find a little local sj comp/clear round that I can take him to as HC and make him go round before next weekend when we're meant to be going to Munstead although if he feels anything like he did today I may just withdraw. No point going all the way there to do a dressage test and half a sj round.
Melted penguins on offer, they're kind of manky/stuck to the plastic wrappers and the jokes seem to have gone drastically downhill since I last bought a packet but they're edible enough
I had a lonely 2 hour drive up there as owner and friend's were all preoccupied with non-horsie activities
- the only bonus being that owner can't stand Radio 1 and so in her absence Bom Bom by Sam and The Womp was blaring as we rolled on through the thick fog at West Wilts in search of the lorry park.Grabbed my number, casually tacked up and off we set for dressage. Fog had lifted and it was starting to heat up, Asbo warmed up okay - no naughtyness although he was really lacking sparkle. I was pleased that he didn't have any paddies about going to the dressage arenas and he did a nice enough test but again it felt like a bit of an effort.
After popping back to lorry and depositing pony, dog and I ran round the XC. The ground was surprisingly okay - I was expecting it to be rather hard but in places it was actually cut up. Lovely course, nothing there that I thought would cause concern and so it was back to lorry to get ready for SJ.
I had a small panic that I was running late however they were only allowing the next 6 in to the warm up and were a little behind so we were told to stand in a collecting area. Unfortunately the sun had really come out by then and it was baking! Eventually got called to the warm up and had the pleasure of watching Little Brittania, Headley Brittania's 4 yr old daughter warm up along side us. Again Asbo felt dead, tried to wake him up with some forward canters around the edge but he still continued to be stuffy. Popped the warm up fences a couple times and then walked round until it was our turn. As usual once in the ring he perked up and I felt confident that we were going to have a nice round....how wrong was I
He didn't want to go anywhere near the first fence and so we had a stop at that. Jumped it well on the second attempt and he went on to jump 2,3 and 4 nicely too. Got to 5 which was a double and again he decided that actually he didn't want to jump it. He crawled over it on second attempt and then we were both very unbalanced coming to the second part and so he ducked right and the bell went On hindsight I should have taken him back in the warm up but with the 6 riders only system I doubt I would have been allowed and tbh I was feeling rather deflated about the whole situation. So back to lorry to pack up, grabbed our dressage sheet (33.5 which I thought was rather generous) and trugged on back home.
I spent most of the drive mulling over why he decided to play up. I think a lot of the stuffyness was down to how hot it got and the standing round. He's starting to get his winter wollies so perhaps its time to clip him. He seems well in himself so I don't think there's a virus brewing but i've bought him some Propell Plus to see if that helps. He's pretty fit (regularly does 4 hour rides without breaking a sweat) so he should be more than capable of a little intro event. With regards to the stopping, a while back owner and I thought we would put him in a working hunter class at Ellingham show which had an awfully small warm up with lots of kids bombing round. He got upset/peed off and went in the ring in a foul mood and refused to go anywhere near the first fence, we were eliminated and had to leave the arena. I think he may have picked up on this as in the past if i've had problems with him doing something I stick at it until he goes but then he was asked to jump, refused three times and then got away with it...which is kind of what happened again today
So i'm currently trying to find a little local sj comp/clear round that I can take him to as HC and make him go round before next weekend when we're meant to be going to Munstead although if he feels anything like he did today I may just withdraw. No point going all the way there to do a dressage test and half a sj round.Melted penguins on offer, they're kind of manky/stuck to the plastic wrappers and the jokes seem to have gone drastically downhill since I last bought a packet but they're edible enough
