Forecast was for heavy rain and they weren't wrong. Got up and left house at 7am and it wasn't too bad. Steadily got heavier as I was plaiting up and was proper chucking it down by the time we got there. Studded up and headed over to the dressage warm up. He worked in nicely enough, felt quite soft and forwards. Test was BE95 and was ok - centre line was very very undulating and he lost balance a bit. Generally everything happened where it should do but it wasn't wow.
Wandered around for a bit then had another warmup for N27 - the RC team test. Really worked on picking up my hands in the warmup and riding him forwards to it and actually had a really good feeling from it. Shortened my reins by about a foot and held my hands up and out in front of me. Very different feeling but I think I've been riding with far too long reins and a very intermittent contact. It was difficult to keep reins nice and short in the rain but determined to keep riding in same fashion, remembered all Helen's tips for a well prepared test and it all came off. So so chuffed with him.
Onto the jumping, didn't fancy much of a warmup in the rain so just popped a couple of fences, didn't worry about walking course, watched a couple of people go and learnt the route. Went in and he jumped a lovely smooth round, just a minor disagreement at the last fence which lo and behold was a skinny so I tried to fit in an extra stride and he ignored me and went on a long one. Must must stop hooking at skinnies!
Straight on round to the 95cm course which was full up height and width and again not getting off to walk it so watched and learnt. Dog leg from oxer at 4 to 1 stride double at 5 causing probs, otherwise looked ok. Warmed up again over a couple of fences then in we went. He jumped a really classy round, just ended up on a slightly deep shot to the double so was prepared for him to try and put in 2 strides but he went on a flyer at the 2nd part and I wasn't ready so just had to sit back, slip reins and hang on hunting style. Jumped through related distance 6 to 7 easily then just lost balance round the corner to 8, came at it disunited and just clipped a pole out. Such a shame as he was jumping really well off not great ground and big fences. He didn't really deserve one down and I dont think he would have done had the ground been better so not too worried.
Final results: Riding club all did fab - everyone did good dressage and jumped clear so ended up with the 2 prelim riders on 2nd in their arenas and I won mine so our team won overall! Excellent so now off to the National Champs at ALW in June. My score for the Novice was 64.6% so quite happy with that. Was 1 mark off the leader in my arena and equal with another on same score as me but they both had 8 faults so we won our arena. Not sure if we won overall as the other arena was generally marked much more generously and I think even with the corrections we wouldn't have won overall but doesn't matter as team won so we all get to go to the finals :)
BE results: I got 36 which I initially thought was a little harsh as was hoping we'd improved but at least it was better than 40 odd from end of last season! We had 4 faults so finished on 40 overall. That left us on same score as 6th place but she jumped clear and had 40 dressage so she got the placing. If we'd finished on 36 we'd have been 3rd. Equal 1st were on 34.5 and one of those was ridden by a pro and the other I know gets score in the 20's regularly so well chuffed we weren't far behind and general consensus is that judging was a little harsh. In the end there were an awful lot of withdrawals - meant to be 40 in the class but only 23 completed dressage and show jumping. But still 7th out of 23 not bad IMO! Work out that normally that would be followed by our best XC phase and would def have been in line for a good placing had that been a ODE. We were =9th after dressage out of 34 so again I think that's a good result for us especially as I only worked out how to ride him after that test so hoping from now on if I ride like I did in N27 we should be online for some really decent scores this season as long as I can stop him from getting too tight and tense over his back at events.
First stop, dressage at MW tomorrow evening to do BE95 and BE106 and then it's T/down on Sunday - yay!
N27
BE95
85cm RC round
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