Quick update (10.02.2014 - photos added)
Few days late but the weekend can be considered a success... or not depending on how you look at it :/ I was wanting to wait for results to be posted so I knew where we ended up overall, but I haven't seen them yet.
Saturday was the drive down, and my oh my, after a hour I almost turned around and went home. Pencil was NOT happy.... when I stopped to see what was going on about 20mins into the 3.5 hour drive the pin had come out of the bum bar again and it meant the partition was swinging open/shut on him... so that would account for all the moving around he was going, got some twine and tied the darn thing to the bum bar and the other side and off we went again. He was better but still not standing still like he normally does, and a lot of either pawing or stomping going on, pulled over to check on him again thinking maybe the twine has snapped - nope nothing. So I just shrugged my shoulder and drove on trying to ignore the stomping and carrying on as much as possible before it got me stressed out - I had to remind my self to let my shoulders relax/drop a few times. Last 2 hours of the trip went MUCH better! Phew. Got to the grounds and YAY course looks awesome, everything looks awesome, only 5 odd other trucks/floats there so I got to park directly in front of Pencils yard (yus for not lugging gear around!) Turns out, one of the boots on the offside hind had dropped down to his fetlock and he was likely kicking at that annoying him (note to check I've done them up properly! - never done that before).
Let him have a walk around, threw him in the yard with some hay/water, cleaned out the float (note I need a hose to take with me in future to make it easir as theirs was to short).
Hopped on and went for a ride around the place to check it out, see where everything was, found my dressage arena, the showjumping and the xc start. Did 15min of schooling since I hadn't done any all week (whoops), put him up for the night, friends had arrived and parked next to me so I hung out with them and helped with their 3 horses. Plaited up, and walked the xc course.
Got a little bit boozy with friends and before I knew it, it was 1am and I freak out race to bed knowing I'm riding at 8:50!!! Stupid stupid LOL... turns out it didn't matter, the moon shone on my face in the back of the wagon and woke me up hourly anyway.. no sleeping in for me.
Dressage time, got on and went over, a little bit of a pain as his old owners came along and started to talk to me as I was warming up - I didn't want to be to rude, but it was at my own detrement - 10mins warm up probably wasn't enough, before I stopped to talk to them he was going lovely and kindly, soft and relaxed. When I picked up to carry on, he got tense and distracted - DOH. I thought the test was average, and it was... turns out average isn't that great.. can't have been any toerags in my class we ended up last! I was a bit peeved about it, but when I read the comments it was all extrememly fair and relevant - lack of straightness (true), fussy in the mouth (true), loss of rhythm (true).. so 43 penalties was fair... on the most positive note of the whole test we actually halted square and facing at OUR judge.. something we had not managed to achieve to date! Excited for my friend as she was sitting in 2nd after dressage (same class).
Showjumping... ICK, le sigh.. I am SO SO dissapointed in myself there, and Pencil... 4 FOUR rails... horse, could you please please stop being distracted and pick up your feet. It was NOT pretty, he warmed up ok, but motoring at the fences, not rushing but not relaxed and rhymic... in the ring - and BANG distractions galore.. the truck, the people, the filler on the ground beside the ring... (here I think - give him a chance, he has done 8 SJ rounds in his life) but still... grrr. Afterwards I think, I should have slowed him down and asked for more, but sometimes you get in the ring and everything flies out and its just getting through the round that you concentrate on... not each individual fence.... that is one thing I MUST improve on this coming weekend.
SO we reach the highlight of the day! XC! YAY GREAT PONY, he did SO SO well. Ok, maybe not SO SO, but SO well. LOL. The goal, and one and only goal I set for myself was no stops at fence one and two. ACHIEVED. YUS. Good Pony - so proud.
Doesn't mean he wasn't sticky though - so to achieve my objective, the idea was to FLY out of the start box, as I normally just wind up to a canter after trotting out... He is a funny horse because he warms up fantastically, goes, comes back, jump out of stride, and then we go to leave and boom, its goners. Anyway, we cracked on into a canter straight out of the start box and I was PUSHING him to GO. Got to the first fence, he got a 1,2 with the whip when he backed off, and another one with the whip when he broke to a trot - but jumped it from the trot and landed and weeeee off we went.
Fence One - Red numbered are my fences
Fence 2 - its ugly, no ground line, up hill and camber isn't right... we trotted and got a smack to make it over this one as well - they also opened the flags out so where the girl is standing could be jumped too.
Fence 3 - what a UGLY ugly fence, luckily we didn't have the shadows to deal with when jumping, he got a bit wiggly and rather close to rapped it.
Then there was a decent gallop down to the tree line in the distance of that photo
Fence 4 - this had me a little worried because it was in the shadows, and will be dark and gloomy when its time to jump the next day, the gallop stretch helped, but still trotted the last stride and popped over it. Then it was a curving line straight off this to the next fence. What was worry as well, is all the trucks and floats were parked and thats all you could see through here the next day, no paddock...
Fence 5 - had me a smidge worried leaving the paddock where all the horses were, and its a large fence (luckily sun wasn't a problem), I was rather thankful when I got here, because Pencil could see a horse in the distance further on in the course, but he was very very wiggly and we just about missing the darn fence, jumped it from trot again and on the angle! Happy he jumps from trot so easily!
I then cracked on, gave a smack and a hoi up to get moving - was over this sticky trotting business...
Fence 6 and 7 - normally this would be a A and B fence, with the related strides... but because it was different number meant we could circle between them if needed. Sucked back a little, but cantered through these really nicely, I was really pleased with how he went through here.
Fence 8 - rut rooo.... we erm, ah, had a extra er pass at this one... directly between the jump and the tree... rather than going over the fence. Because I had cracked on at him, we were going a littttlllle to quick, and when he goes faster, sometime the steering responses decrease... never mind, we came around and popped over it nicely second time. What you also can't see is there was a lot going on here with major corner complex and we were right under the trees... so probabaly should have accounted for this some more.
Fence 9 - 90 degree turn off the corner, popped over this (from a trot again), and off for another stretch to move out for a gallop.
Fence 10 - meant to be more of a galloping fence, but we trotted the last stride in as he had a wee look
Fence 11 a/b - under more trees, skinny on a curve and the a fence wasn't really small - this was the fence that had me the most worried and where I expected to have issues... but no, we still trotted into it (BIG effort) and made it through
Fence 12 - there was another long stretch to this, where you can see after is the water complex which was AWESOME, and I went straight over this, carried on and down into the water.. turn left around the "island"
To the left of this pic, we came up out of the water up a small step, 2 strides and over the roll top (Fence 13) you can just see, then turn hard right and back into the water over the small logs (Fence 14) you can see flagged on the RHS of the pic.
Looking backwards at them from Fence 15 just out of the water... these can be a little tricky if the horse is sticky coming out of water, especially up a bank... luckily this was low enough you can trot over it.
Fence 16 a,b,c - up a bank with a small ditch in front (you can't see), down the bank, 4 strides and over C.
Fence 17 - straight forward but a slightly funny line off the C above, I'm standing at the back of C... we cantered this one!
Fence 18 - I nearly come off him here... as you can see - its not that visible, and Pencil nearly tripped over it!! Jeepers creepers, how would that be for bad luck to fall off between this and the flags.
And that was the xc course of 3600m - phew... tired pony and pip at the end - but grinning like mad!
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