Mattingley unaffiliated horse trials 90cm (Intro) 08-05-11

Pony gave me a heart attack last night coming in with a big wire wound all the way round a front pastern - I found the wire in the field whilst poo picking earlier in the day and wondered who might have been playing with it.  Fortunately it was all very superficial once I clipped it up so gave it a good wash and shoved some rules legal barrier cream on it and hoped for the best!

Sound horse this morning, no swelling round the wound so off we went!  What a fab day!  Late times so didn't have to leave the house till 9am which was lovely!  Our 2nd ever ODE and first ever at 90cm.

Got to Mattingley about 11am.  He was a bit pingy in the dressage warmup - it was buzzing with a zillion arenas on at once and one end right next to the back of the trade stands with all the generators and noise so deliberately worked him at that end as my arena was on the end there too.  Eventually he settled and was working as nicely as he does.  He still needs a bit more engagement as we still get head up to right canter at the moment, but considering he closely resembled a giraffe crossed with a banana 8mths ago I am very happy with his progress.  He did some giraffe impressions on the trot round the arena but then settled nicely. Test was BE91. I was very pleased to find a nicely mown centre line with a line across where G was for the final halt - very helpful!  It was a bit bumpy in places so we did lose our balance a bit as not that used to working on grass yet.  Was very pleased to go and look afterwards and find we had 34.5 (39 at Tweseldown 3wks ago) and was in joint 2nd with half the scores up - no pressure then!  Will prob get the vid up tomorrow - it takes hours to upload (and I'm sure not that interesting!)  We got one 5 for our right canter trans as predicted but otherwise all 6's and 7's and nice comments.  Nice to have a judge who at least knows something about dressage after Tweseldown (only a List One lol - good thing I didn't know that until after or I might have been a bit awestruck and forgotten the test!)

Had nearly 3hrs before SJing, so managed to force down some chips, have a natter to some friends who'd done the Pre-Intro, walk the SJing course and leisurely get ready for SJ.  Really not good with time to kill, every time I stood still my heart started pounding!  No need to worry though - Monts is a pro at the SJing lark - flew over the warmup fences all calm and collected, into the ring and he lit up - I just sat there and steered and he pinged them all no probs!  Lovely clear in the time.

http://youtu.be/SW6eandHjDE

fence 2:
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fence3:
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fence 5:
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2nd part of double at 7:
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last one at 9 - got a little close here I think!
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Meant to have 45mins until XC but they were calling people to come early so we toddled on up about 10mins before time.  He pinged each of the warmup fences once, they were waiting for people to go so off we went!  Determined to go all the straight routes and try and make the time having been 27secs over at T/down 3wks ago and that was at 80cm so knew I needed to put my foot down!  Shot out of the box, great stride to the brush thing at no.1, bit spooky down the hill to brush rolltop at 2, bit more spooking through the woods and literally shot out of the woods and over the sheep feeder at 3 then foot to the metal and gallop up the hill to 4, a little log no probs.

http://youtu.be/HKE176gcVAU

galloping away between 3 and 4:
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up some more hill then steady up for 90degree left turn to the double at 5 - big meaty palisade followed by a roll top 2 strides later.  no probs there, onwards to the combination at 6.  steadied up so he could see the ditch, popped over no probs (might have given a bit of verbal encouragement!) and then 3 strides to a roll top.  onwards a bit more then had to anchor up for 90 degree left turn to the corner - never jumped one before but it was more like a skinny than a corner as not much spread so no probs there.  Down the hill to the ski jump and really steadied for this as he likes to launch off drops.  The pro pic is funny - I have a right grimace on my face and a proper hunting safety seat going on but I bought it anyway as needed a record of such a good day!

permission to post courtesy of John Britter Photography.
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Down the hill to the 1st water - a big muddy puddle - lots of verbal encouragement and through that then launched himself over the tyres and shot off through the woods, only just making the 90degree turn over the bridge, spooking at something on the left and nearly jumping the right hand pre-intro brush box instead of his own - took a flyer and landed halfway up the hill, back round over another bridge (more to spook at!) and then up onto the bank and over the tyres, wasn't expecting him to try and leap off the bank in one go so had a wobbly moment there!  Onwards to a little house at 12 then 90degree right bend to the crocodile before the water, he was thinking about the water so big growl and he absolutely leapt into it

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Flew out the other side and no probs over the bright blue woodburner.

http://youtu.be/-aX-MARZEO8

woodburner at 15 ( bit disappointed with how dark green the new XC top is - it all looks a bit dull dont you think? :( )
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away from the woodburner:
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Homewards bound now, saw a bit of a dodgy long one to the chair at 16 but pony saved us and tucked in a little one then up the final hill to the step up and log at 17, bit wobbly to the log but over and away up the hill to fly over the final flower box fence and finish full of running to hear the commentator announce we had gone into the lead (equal score to another double clear but closer to the optimum time! - 8secs inside the time)  Amazing!  Nearly fell off the horse, then nearly cried.  Have wanted to event my whole life - am so chuffed to finally be doing it.

I finished far more out of breath than the horse - damn asthma - had a tight chest for the rest of the day - have no probs with holding my position for 5mins of galloping so dont hinder him in any way but my lungs do let me down!  After washing off, icing legs, bandaging legs etc etc etc we went off to see the scoreboard and the rest of the section were fab at dressage and almost all could push me down so agonising wait till the ends.  Turns out most of those who are fab at dressage aren't so hot at SJing and we ended up 2nd out of 34 starters!  Winner was on her dressage score of 31.5 and I know we simply aren't good enough to get that yet so am just simply thrilled at finishing on our dressage score at our 1st attempt at 90cm and really buzzed up about going BE now.  1st one at T/down in 2wks time then Borde Hill the week after then probs BCA 2wks after that and continue to work on the damn dressage as I suspect 34.5 wont be good enough to get us placed at BE.

We got a lovely ribbon and £55 prize money which might have covered the diesel and the photo!
pretty frillie thing:
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Sorry it got very long - very excited!  Strawberry ice-cream with a flake (my lunch lol!) if you made it to the end!