9th March 2013 - Inglewood ODE

Dressage bombed, really really windy day - I expected worse but he settled in the arena instead of charging off like he was in warm up... Still could have been much better, I used it as a test to ride more for me - sit up, carry the hands and let him work how he wants, and it obviously helped as he settled instead of me tending tipping forward and gripping the thigh - video of it to post later. Sj dropped rails, he got stuck and lost forward and I did the same thing as dressage, perched and tipped forward which was of no help and I caught myself looking down at the base of the fence instead of the top rail and was clearly getting sucked into deep/ the base. Xc is about 2 hours away.... A couple of interesting fences to jump.

Update 2:
I just watched the test on video it's not as bad as I felt but some terrible moments - and I've just been reminded this is only his fourth outing and he is actually doing fine - plaiting was a big deal, standing tied to the float without digging a big hole is a improvement. Just got to remember these are for him to get used to going out and about - not being competitive - that will come after winter and he is stronger.

Update 3:
Back to update on the XC:
XC was a BLAST.

The galloping and opening up has helped fantasticly, when I put my leg on and said GO, he went - not as much as I hope he will eventually, but enough that he didn't have a plonky canter. We got stuck for a extra half hour as the third rider to go in the 80cm cleaned out fence three so that stopped the course until the TD made it down and the course go changed (suckingly), we now had to go through a gate on to a hard gravel race, along that for 70m odd, then do a S bend/turn to get onto fence 4, which was a horrible fence of those square 5gal pails stacked up. Fence one and two he was a little pokey at, but he looked at them then headed for them, before sucking back marginly.. then from there fence 5 we trotted (it was a 90deg bend through a gate onto it), and then I gave him a smack to GO, but pulled up at the water fence to get him to look, this one was very dirty/green with lots of floaties..... so he had a weee look then stepped into it. That was fine by me
From then on HE ROCKED IT, yay pencil... a good open canter to concrete pipes (we took the big 1.0m fence as it was open flagged and it was only 2 strides out that I sat down and all I needed to do was close my legs and he jumped it beautifully and then carried on flowing. Fence 9 was a bit ugly through a gate and 2 strides onto it - jumped it on a angle rather than coming into trot - much easier although I heard him rap it. Fence 10 I took the kind option of banks, it was up hill to the banks, then the straight option was big bank 2 strides big bank, or I took the smaller bank which had me take a slight left before coming around right and over the second one with plenty of room to turn - I took that option not sure why, I just felt is was the right thing to do... now I'm thinking a bit harder he was pettering out coming up the hill and losing the open stride...
Fence 10/11 was a ditch a curving 2 stride to chicken coop and it was DOWN hill to the ditch... which is actually a deceivingly hard ride because most horses want to run down the hill and riders pull the horse up and steady them substantially - there is no flat peice before the ditch to ride on strong to it and many riders are still at the steadying phase when they should be pushing on. I steadied because I wasn't sure if he would even see the ditch (no front rail) and trotted in popped the ditch and made a half attempt at the coop skipped to the side (then circled for the next rider to go thruogh) and popped the coop.. fence 12/13 was kindly seperately number, two skinnies on a curve, so I got to circle inbetween (I would have put $ down that we would have missed the second one) then the rest were really straight forward and jumped them out of stride.

So really happy with that. Sad is that I've got one more event for the season (unless I can find a HT to go to in April)...

I'll share the photo's and vids later - I need to clean up the trailer, do some washing and get some food into me!!!


Update 4:
Dressage and SJ posted here, if you follow the link to photobucket you can see part of the warmup for dressage. You can hear the wind in the clips... and yes the arena was that downhill...
I think I see a improvement with the hands not being so wide all the time, and I don't think I'm as tipped forward/grippy in the thigh this time round compared with the other video clip (it didn't feel it either).





Watching the SJ, I should have given a smack much earlier in the course.