Monty Rackham RC Area Qualifier 10-07-11

So, onto the RC Areas. Test was HN1 which I only got a copy of on Thur and found it had give and retake the reins in canter which is not something I've worked on with him yet, I give the inside rein a lot but I haven't got his self carriage good enough to give both so that was a minor disaster which involved him sticking his nose to the sky and bogging off on both reins - I thought 5's were generous! Got a bloody 5 for his final halt as well when he decided he couldn't stand still in a straight line (got 8's in both tests at BD on Wed - grrr!) Still, the rest wasn't bad and we ended up on 36.4.

Onto the SJing, warmed up positively working on rhythm, cantered into the ring to avoid napping and he flew round for a fab clear round which is our first clear since May so very pleased with that, even if the height was nearer 80cm than 90cm, I was sure he would have cleared higher as our rhythm was so much better.
pro pics: SJing pro pics
video: 

Onto the XC which was identical to the BE course 2wks ago - we were 25secs inside the time then so elected to go slightly steadier and really slow up through the bad ground in the woods which was even worse than 2wks ago.

fence 1-3: 

Nearly ran over some people walking the course in the 1st woods as I wanted the outside line for better ground and they were stood right in the way! He looked at the fence out for some reason but no real probs. The ground at the bottom of the sunken road was forming holes when we walked the course so tried to stick right to avoid that then onto 2nd woods. Well, wasn't too impressed with the ground to fence 8 - Monty is a very good hunter and used to jumping out of mud, but this was a thick thick bog of woodchips and he floundered, got right underneath it, couldn't get his feet up, fell over it and I heard the wood crack as he went over it - lucky escape. I only watched one other horse jump it when we walked the course and he did the same thing so I'm pretty sure it should have been taken out but hey ho, we survived and he flew the rest of the course no probs.

fence 9-12: 

pro pics 10-12

pro pics water at 13

fence 14-16: 

So, we finished on our dressage score after 5hrs of waiting for them to sort the scores (snore) we discovered we were inside the time and had won our arena. Still, have no idea if I won overall as there were 4 arenas and they have to do some complicated equation to work out who was actually the best as there's some coefficient to apply to even out any bias from the different dressage arenas. As there were only 36 runners I have no idea why they didn't just put us all in one arena and then it wouldn't be an issue. To top it all off I then found out the champs are in 4wks time, entries close on Thursday, I still have no idea if I've qualified and I'm meant to be working on the Saturday and it's a 2day champs with dr/sj on the sat and 4 phases of XC on the Sun. Work is a nightmare to swap weekend days and I cant set about swapping until I know for def! I'd love to go and do the roads/tracks and steepchase but I've entered West Wilts Regionals 3days later so would have to withdraw from that and reroute to BCA and all the time I still have no idea if we've even qualified and they expect me to sort everything and enter by Thur if I have - rah! RC organisation is a nightmare! Would be great to go to the Nationals but just cant see it happening 

Unfortunately our team didn't complete but we did have a fab day out. Here is the happy team and the miserable bunch of ponies!:


and my fave piccies courtesy of LRG photography:
way to fence 11:

fence 12: 

water at 13: 

out of the water: 

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