Llewi's turn today. Seriously hot day, he was sweating when I got him in from the field! Sharer had taken him for a muddy hack yesterday and his feet were plastered in mud so spent ages scrubbing all that off then off we went. Got there to find the warmup field was their SJing field. Llewi's worst nightmare. He cannot cope with jumps, we unloaded next to one and he had a heart attack. Bad bad start to the day. Got on and found the least jumpy bit of the warmup but wasn't enough room to do much and he was so tense every time we went near a jump. There was some shooting going on a few fields away too which just made for a very tense pony.
1st test was P12 and he towed me round. There was a XC jump just at the top end of the arena which he of course had to spook at so that dropped us a few marks and then he muddled his final halt and jogged in his free walk, all losing us valuable marks. Finished on 63.6% which was disappointing given his recent scores - came =9th out of 22 in our arena so not awful but nowhere near as good as he can do and not good enough to get our team through to the L&SE champs which I feel really bad about as the others did really well. Bloody pony and his jump phobia - grrrrr.
Had an hour before the next test so let him eat grass in the shade and chill out then climbed back on for Riding Test 11. He had chilled out considerably which was nice and did quite a sweet test. Someone decided to make some noise resembling a hunting horn and a load of dogs started barking over the hedge during our FWLR which led to a "slight" loss in concentration and I will fully admit to not riding my best due to being overhot and overtired but it generally went ok. Was most pleased with the G&R reins in canter on the left rein as he just stayed in a lovely outline for the whole 3 strides. Suffered from the too much neck bend left rein problem again which need to work on more at home, but not too bad. Got 68.8% which was lower than everyone else in the team although 2 different arenas running so cant directly compare everyone. Anyway, turns out that was good enough for 6th and for our team to win! So, we are through to the L&SE Champs in the Riding Test at least!
Next step is the National Riding Test qualifier and National Open dressage qualifier next Sunday - Llewi is doing the RT and Monty the Novice for the teams then they are both doing another novice as individuals.
Then just debating whether to enter Llewi for the BD at Pachesham on the Wed evening - 2 outings in a very short space of time but then he seems to benefit from going out often and I do want to try and get some Area Festival sheets and he wont go to anymore dressage after that for a good couple of wks.
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